Blephilia

noun

Ble·phil·ia

blə̇ˈfilēə

: a small genus of North American herbs (family Labiatae) with opposite hairy leaves and purplish or bluish flowers in dense clusters

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin, of unknown origin

Note: Name introduced by the French polymath Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783-1840) in "Prodrome des nouveaux Genres de Plantes observés en 1817 et 1818 dans l'intérieur des États-Unis d'Amérique," Journal de Physique, de Chimie, d'Histoire Naturelle et des Arts, tome 89 (juillet, an 1819), p. 98. Like a number of other taxa coined by Rafinesque, the origin is obscure and not elucidated by the author. The initial bleph- suggests Greek blépharon "eyelid" or blepharís "eyelash," but the nature of -ilia remains unknown, and the semantic connection is not apparent from Rafinesque's description of the plant. Note that the International Plant Names Index refers the name to a review by Rafinesque of Thomas Nuttall's The Genera of North American Plants (1818) in The American Monthly Magazine and Critical Review, vol. 4, no. 3 (January, 1819), p. 190; this occurrence may have chronological priority, though it does not expand on either the plant or the name ("Monarda ciliata must form a new genus, which we call Blephilia, distinguished by an unequal calyx").