Just a short post for today’s silk flower stem of the day, the zinnia. This colorful flower (comes in yellow, orange, red, purple, white, and lilac, which means it pretty much goes with everything). The most well known species, zinnia elegans hails from our neighbor to the south, Mexico.
These are giant Zinnias. I'm not even sure if giant does them justice.
The zinnia’s namesake is Johann Gottfried Zinn, a German botanist and anatomist, famous for describing the anatomy of the human eye. He was also very fascinated with botany, and when Carolus Linnaeus was handing out genus names, he named the Zinnia in honor of Zinn. It must have been nice for Carolus Linnaeus to like you. If he did, there was a good chance that he’d name an entire genus of flowers after you, and 250 years later, people would still know your name.
-Chris
Thanks to Botanica for some facts about the origin of the zinnia. Botanica is probably in my car on its way back to Santa Ana.
As always, thanks to Wikipedia, this time for information about Johann Gottfried Zinn, and a check in with our friend Carolus Linnaeus.