Re: Funny Forskaohlei
- To: m*@ucdavis.edu
- Subject: Re: Funny Forskaohlei
- From: J* A* <j*@mech.eng.usyd.edu.au>
- Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 18:12:18 +1100 (EST)
At 01:17 5/11/98 -0500, Rich wrote:
>At 10:09 AM 11/5/1998 +1100, you wrote:
>>At 21:51 4/11/98 GMT, Tim wrote:
>>
>>>The spelling is a problem. Betsy Clebsch has FORSKAOLEI. So does
>>>Christine Yeo. So, once upon a time, did T. Longville. Then up popped
>>>THE PLANT FINDER, the UK Bible nowadays for plant names, and opted for
>>>FORSSKAOLII.
>
>Whoa!
>
>I thought the variations in the spelling of this species was between S.
>forskaohlei and S. forskohlei. I thought Linnaeus named this one himself,
>after one of his more noted students. I got the first spelling from Flora
>Europea, and the second from volume 7 of the Flora of Turkey. I think I've
>seen the name spelled S. forskahlei as well. So there seems to be four sets
>of variations here:
>
>1. One or two s's
>2. a or ao or a
>3. H or no H
>4. ei or ii
>
>Can someone explain this a bit further, especially the business with the `h'?
My previous post explained the "ss", and the "ao" (which could also be "aa"
in nineteenth century Danish or Norwegian, not sure about Swedish).
It's just a guess, but maybe our Fenno-Swedish friend Peter Forsskaal or
Forsskaol spent some time in Germany, and while he was there spelled his
name in the German fashion, which would be "Forskahl" or "Forskohl".
"Forskaohl" though! I can't imagine where that could have come from.
As for "-ei" versus "-ii", my knowledge of the conventions of botanical
latin endings is miniscule, but "-ei" looks better to me :-)
John.
