Dwarfed. Thistle-leaved Berkheya, Berkheya cirsiifolia, and Apis mellifera, Honeybee, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Large-flowering Thistle-leaved Berkheya really dwarfs our busy Honeybee! It was first collected by Johann Frantz Drège (1794-1881), a professional botanist collector, in the Wittebergen of the Cape, South Africa, in 1833/1834 at an altitude of about 2000 m. He sent an herbarium specimen to Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) - which you can still see if you visit the Candolle herbarium in Geneva, Switzerland. De Candolle published the plant's name as Stobaea cirsiifolia in 1837. In 1959, Helmut Roessler (1926-) determined it to be Berkheya cirsiifolia, and that's the scientific name for it today.
The name 'Berkheya' had already been established in 1784 by Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart (1742-1795). Ehrhart had great enthusiasm for the doctoral dissertation of Johannes le Francq van Berkhey (1729-1812) on the structure of composite flowers (asteraceae).
No doubt, our Apis mellifera, Honeybee, could care less either about the name of its host or even its own!
Dwarfed. Thistle-leaved Berkheya, Berkheya cirsiifolia, and Apis mellifera, Honeybee, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Large-flowering Thistle-leaved Berkheya really dwarfs our busy Honeybee! It was first collected by Johann Frantz Drège (1794-1881), a professional botanist collector, in the Wittebergen of the Cape, South Africa, in 1833/1834 at an altitude of about 2000 m. He sent an herbarium specimen to Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) - which you can still see if you visit the Candolle herbarium in Geneva, Switzerland. De Candolle published the plant's name as Stobaea cirsiifolia in 1837. In 1959, Helmut Roessler (1926-) determined it to be Berkheya cirsiifolia, and that's the scientific name for it today.
The name 'Berkheya' had already been established in 1784 by Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart (1742-1795). Ehrhart had great enthusiasm for the doctoral dissertation of Johannes le Francq van Berkhey (1729-1812) on the structure of composite flowers (asteraceae).
No doubt, our Apis mellifera, Honeybee, could care less either about the name of its host or even its own!