In Wisdom Forest: Etlingera elatior, Rimba Ilmu, University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
About half an hour from the centre of Kuala Lumpur on the Putra Line is the huge campus of the University of Malaysia. Tucked into the northeast corner is the Rimba Ilmu - the Forest of Wisdom - , the university's fine botanical garden. Though a bit out of the way if you use public transport - crossing streets on foot in KL is an adventure in itself - visits here are spectacular for serious plant lovers.
The Rimba Ilmu has medicinal plants, palm collections (among which the amazingly huge-leafed and greatly threatened Johannesteijsmannia magnifica palm), a marvellous fern house, and very much more.
This morning - dripping from the muggy heat - I was colorfully greeted by this member of the ginger family, well-known as Torch Ginger in English and Kanan in Malaysian. 'Elatior' needs no explanation. ' Etlingera' stands for Andreas Ernst Etlinger (1730-1790) who was apparently admired by Paul Dietrich Giseke (1741-1796), a close friend of Linnaeus in the latter's final years. Giseke in his 1792 descriptive book on the order of nature first uses the genus name 'Etlingera' . Etlinger himself was an expert on salvia. Regrettably I cannot - here in KL - find anything else about him.
I'm always amazed at the versatility of these early-modern botantists. Giseke was not only a botanist and a physician but became a professor of physics at the Akademisches Gymnasium of Hamburg, Germany. He also taught rhetoric and poetics. Just think of the poems that might be written about this beautiful plant!
In Wisdom Forest: Etlingera elatior, Rimba Ilmu, University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
About half an hour from the centre of Kuala Lumpur on the Putra Line is the huge campus of the University of Malaysia. Tucked into the northeast corner is the Rimba Ilmu - the Forest of Wisdom - , the university's fine botanical garden. Though a bit out of the way if you use public transport - crossing streets on foot in KL is an adventure in itself - visits here are spectacular for serious plant lovers.
The Rimba Ilmu has medicinal plants, palm collections (among which the amazingly huge-leafed and greatly threatened Johannesteijsmannia magnifica palm), a marvellous fern house, and very much more.
This morning - dripping from the muggy heat - I was colorfully greeted by this member of the ginger family, well-known as Torch Ginger in English and Kanan in Malaysian. 'Elatior' needs no explanation. ' Etlingera' stands for Andreas Ernst Etlinger (1730-1790) who was apparently admired by Paul Dietrich Giseke (1741-1796), a close friend of Linnaeus in the latter's final years. Giseke in his 1792 descriptive book on the order of nature first uses the genus name 'Etlingera' . Etlinger himself was an expert on salvia. Regrettably I cannot - here in KL - find anything else about him.
I'm always amazed at the versatility of these early-modern botantists. Giseke was not only a botanist and a physician but became a professor of physics at the Akademisches Gymnasium of Hamburg, Germany. He also taught rhetoric and poetics. Just think of the poems that might be written about this beautiful plant!