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Harveya (plant)

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Harveya
Scientific classification
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Genus:
Harveya

Species

About 40

Harveya is a genus of parasitic plants in the broom-rape family Orobanchaceae. The approximately 40 species included are native to Africa and the Mascarene Islands.

It was named after William Henry Harvey, thus achieving one of his childhood ambitions. Discussing his vocational prospects as a youth, Harvey wrote that he was "neither fit to be a doctor nor a lawyer, lacking courage for the one, and face for the other, and application for both.... All I have a taste for is natural history, and that might possibly lead in days to come to a genus called Harveya, and the letters F.L.S. after my name, and with that I shall be content."[1]

References

  1. ^ Praeger, Robert Lloyd (1913). "William Henry Harvey 1811—1866" . In Oliver, Francis Wall (ed.). Makers of British Botany . Cambridge University Press.