Fiercely Purple. Dog Violet, Viola riviniana, Gaasperplas, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Our Willow, Salix babylonica, continues to Weep even after that very stern and fierce look by Dog Violet, Viola riviniana: 'Stop it!' Not a friendly look at all. But under the very blue sky our pretty flower is probably just bracing against the strong, icy northeasterly wind like your sandal-shod photographer.
'Riviniana' is for August Quininius Rivinus (= August Bachmann) (1652-1722), a famous physician and botanist at Leipzig. Medical doctors will know him even today for his work on eardrums and the salivary glands; several of their anatomical structures are named for him. A versatile naturalist, he was also a consummate botanist and an uncautious astronomer; he went blind because he studied sunspots without protection for his eyes. Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (1793-1879) - whom I've mentioned in these pages before - named (1823) our Violet for Rivinus no doubt because the latter was a pioneer in the classification of plants according to their morphology.
Fiercely Purple. Dog Violet, Viola riviniana, Gaasperplas, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Our Willow, Salix babylonica, continues to Weep even after that very stern and fierce look by Dog Violet, Viola riviniana: 'Stop it!' Not a friendly look at all. But under the very blue sky our pretty flower is probably just bracing against the strong, icy northeasterly wind like your sandal-shod photographer.
'Riviniana' is for August Quininius Rivinus (= August Bachmann) (1652-1722), a famous physician and botanist at Leipzig. Medical doctors will know him even today for his work on eardrums and the salivary glands; several of their anatomical structures are named for him. A versatile naturalist, he was also a consummate botanist and an uncautious astronomer; he went blind because he studied sunspots without protection for his eyes. Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (1793-1879) - whom I've mentioned in these pages before - named (1823) our Violet for Rivinus no doubt because the latter was a pioneer in the classification of plants according to their morphology.