Pronouncing Aa

[Andrew]

Thanks for the help. Tindomul, I stuggle to believe that Reichenbach truly wanted to honour the publisher of a book that was published 150 years prior to the date the genus was described and, from what I understand, contained minimal orchid content by naming an orchid after him. It is conceiveable that he did a lot of work finding a remotely relevant person named Aa to justify choosing the name. Botanical descriptions include the etymology of the name. 'Named in honour of Peter van der Aa' gives Reichenbach a bit more credibility than 'named to secure first place in an index'.

[tropterrarium]

Originally Posted by Andrew

Thanks for the help. Tindomul, I stuggle to believe that Reichenbach truly wanted to honour the publisher of a book that was published 150 years prior to the date the genus was described and, from what I understand, contained minimal orchid content by naming an orchid after him. It is conceiveable that he did a lot of work finding a remotely relevant person named Aa to justify choosing the name. Botanical descriptions include the etymology of the name. 'Named in honour of Peter van der Aa' gives Reichenbach a bit more credibility than 'named to secure first place in an index'.

Not sure about ICBN rules, but in ICZN random letter combinations are invalid! So Aa to secure first place in list would be invalid, but naming it after some obscure publisher is just fine. GENIUS! Who said nomenclature was no fun?