Heavenly Blue. Felicia heterophylla, Blue-hearted Daisy, and Thick-thighed Hoverfly, Syritta pipiens, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Blue-hearted Daisy!
Think about it: most Daisies you know of whatever color have a yellow or orange 'heart'. Felicia heterophylla, True-Blue Daisy is one of the few exceptions. It was first described under the name Agathaea celestis - Heavenly Excellence - by Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini (1781-1832) in 1817. True-Blue went by a number of other Latin names for a century and a half until Jan Grau in 1973 sorted out the entire genus Felicia.
I suppose it's fitting to call it 'heavenly' for more than only an aesthetic reason. In 1751 the great French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille (1713-1762) had traveled to the Cape of Good Hope to study the southern heavens. He spent literally all his nights - together with only his little dog Gris-Gris - cataloguing stars; in the end some 10,000 of them, and he named new southern constellations (some 14) as we still call them today. Besides doing his calculations during the day he also e.g. at Mamre, the former Groene Kloof - I quote the English translation of his notes for 8 to 10 August 1751 - 'amused myself shooting some birds and collecting some local flowers'. These flowers and others too he sent back to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Cassini later described our Heavenly Blue in 1817 on the basis of that 'packet of dried plants sent from the Cape (by Lacaille, RP) a long time ago.'
Lacaille seems to have been something of a loner and he hated public adulation. Tiny Syritta pipiens, Thick-thighed Hoverfly, is a loner, too. But it's not sticking its tongue out at you but rather for pollinic sustenance stolen from the blue pistil of Felicia.
Heavenly Blue. Felicia heterophylla, Blue-hearted Daisy, and Thick-thighed Hoverfly, Syritta pipiens, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Blue-hearted Daisy!
Think about it: most Daisies you know of whatever color have a yellow or orange 'heart'. Felicia heterophylla, True-Blue Daisy is one of the few exceptions. It was first described under the name Agathaea celestis - Heavenly Excellence - by Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini (1781-1832) in 1817. True-Blue went by a number of other Latin names for a century and a half until Jan Grau in 1973 sorted out the entire genus Felicia.
I suppose it's fitting to call it 'heavenly' for more than only an aesthetic reason. In 1751 the great French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille (1713-1762) had traveled to the Cape of Good Hope to study the southern heavens. He spent literally all his nights - together with only his little dog Gris-Gris - cataloguing stars; in the end some 10,000 of them, and he named new southern constellations (some 14) as we still call them today. Besides doing his calculations during the day he also e.g. at Mamre, the former Groene Kloof - I quote the English translation of his notes for 8 to 10 August 1751 - 'amused myself shooting some birds and collecting some local flowers'. These flowers and others too he sent back to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Cassini later described our Heavenly Blue in 1817 on the basis of that 'packet of dried plants sent from the Cape (by Lacaille, RP) a long time ago.'
Lacaille seems to have been something of a loner and he hated public adulation. Tiny Syritta pipiens, Thick-thighed Hoverfly, is a loner, too. But it's not sticking its tongue out at you but rather for pollinic sustenance stolen from the blue pistil of Felicia.