Re: Request for Insights: Terminology

 

Anner; I have never heard the term calaminaria used, but from the suffix âariumâ it would suggest a place where something is done like a herbarium, My Latin is not great but I would suggest that the form aria may also indicate a place, or area. I would guess that this probably refers to a microhabitat that contains  Zinc or perhaps Calcium, the former being most likely. I picture in my mind a mining area for Zinc or other metals. The soils that contain high content of metals often have a distinct flora, either plants that can tolerate the toxicity or in a few cases even require it.



 


Greetings.
 
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to tap the collective scientific knowledge base, please, with regard to a name which emerged in relation to a nineteenth century American catalog list of bearded irises. It does not appear in the 1939 AIS Check List.
 
The plant is/was Iris 'Calaminaria,' and it was offered with a collection of plants bearing names associated preponderantly with LÃmon, and mid-century Van Houtte. The catalog indicates that the source of the collection was "Belgium," which almost certainly also means Van Houtte, in Ghent.   
 
What can you tell me about the word "calaminaria," please?
 
I've done some Googling and am finding it used as a specific epithet for a Viola species, a rare one, described as a "metallophyte," which is native to a very restricted area of Belgium. I'm also seeing the word used to describe certain grasslands environments, here again involving what I understand to be heavily metallic soils. The word suggests "calamine" like the lotion, which is zinc. The only zinc colored bearded iris I know is 'BÃotie,' albeit it is a humdinger. I did tryto work with the Greek root, but did not get anywhere.
 
Is there a defined meaning in botanical science or a related field for this sort of terminology?
 
Thanks so much..
 
Cordially,
 
AMW
 
  

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