In honor of President’s Day, I would like to present some plant names that pay tribute to our past presidents. It’s not uncommon for scientists to name plants or other organisms after people, as you can see here. For the benefit of my horticulture students, I’m including some plant family information, too.

Washington fan palm. The genus Washingtonia was named in honor of George Washington

Washingtonia is a genus of fan palms native to the southwestern United States and northwest Mexico, from the family Arecaceae. The genus was named for George Washington. When I lived in California and Arizona, Washington fan palms were common landscape plants.
Jeffersonia is a small genus of herbaceous perennial plants in the family Berberidaceae, named for President Thomas Jefferson. Jeffersonia diphylla, also known as twinleaf, is a spring wildflower native to the eastern U.S., including the greater Cincinnati area, where it grows in limestone rich woodland soils.

These may sound like they were named after Presidents, but weren’t:
Linconia for Abraham Lincoln; a genus of shrubs native to the cape region of South Africa.
Johnsonia, from the family Liliaceae, for Andrew Johnson; these Australian plants were actually named for Thomas Johnson, 17th century English naturalist.
Jacksonia for Andrew Jackson; a genus of about 50 species, all of them endemic to Australia.
Wilsonia for Woodrow Wilson; a genus of perennial sub-shrubs from Australia, the name actually honors British botanist and author John Wilson.
Rooseveltia for Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt; another genus of North American palms.
Kennedia for the Kennedy family; this genus of Australian plants was named after John Kennedy, a nurseryman from London.
Clintonia from the family Liliaceae, for Bill Clinton; these are the Bead Lilies from North America and eastern Asia.

In more presidential naming news . . .

Three members of the former Bush administration have a slime-mold beetle named in their honor: George W. Bush, Agathidium bushi; Dick Cheney, Agathidium cheneyi; and Donald Rumsfeld, Agathidium rumsfeldi. Quentin Wheeler, head of entomology at the Natural History Museum in London, chose the names. This was meant as a compliment, seeing as how he named other slime-mold beetles after his wife and other famous historical characters!

And finally, a species of lichen has been named after President Obama: Caloplaca obamae. Kerry Knudsen, lichen curator at the University of California, found and collected samples of the species during the final weeks of Obama’s campaign, so the lichen expert named the plant “to show my appreciation for the president’s support of science and science education.”

I hope you have found this trivia interesting. And students, perhaps one day you will have the chance to name a plant in honor of someone. Might I suggest Trustia?

Happy Gardening!