Ariocarpus scaphirostrus

Ariocarpus scaphirostrus ('scapharostrus') Boed. (1930)

🌵 Author(s)	Friedrich Bödeker
🌵 Published in	Monatsschr. Deutsch. Kakteen-Ges. 2(3-4): 60 (1930)

Etymology

Greek skaphē, Latin scăpha ‘light boat, skiff’ + Latin –rostrus ‘-beaked’, a literal translation of German Bootschnabel ‘bow of a boat’ (literally ‘boat beak’). For the shape of the tubercles. Bödeker: “The 2 undersides [of the three-sided prism-shaped tubercles] are a little narrower than the upper side at the lower end, but the same width and therefore more linear, separated by a sharp keel edge, which, however, at the end is strangely short, rounded and curved upwards, like the bow of a boat [Bootschnabel], into the tip of the tubercle”. Not “for the boat-shaped beak (of the fruits?)” (Genaust, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der botanischen Pflanzennamen. 3. Auflage. 1996).

Hunt (in Bradleya 9: 83. 1991) corrected the original spelling scapharostrus to scaphirostris:

Depending whether the first part of the epithet (giving the root scaph-) is treated as a Latin noun or its Greek equivalent (skaphe), the correct connecting vowel will be ‘i‘ or ‘o‘ respectively. There is no word corresponding to ‘rostrum‘ in Greek, so (in order not to commit the barbarism of combining Greek and Latin elements!) classicists would probably prefer to use the Latin form, hence scaphi-. So far so good, but what about ‘rostrus‘? The available adjectival forms of rostrum are rostratus, or, in compounds, the suffix –rostris. This gives us scaphirostratus or scaphirostris. I prefer the latter spelling as it is nearer to the original, and will use it in future.

However, Hunt overlooked the fact that the adjectival form rostrus does in fact exist (e.g. rĕpandĭrostrus ‘with a turned-up snout’). The correct spelling is therefore scaphirostrus.

Friedrich Bödeker formally published the name Ariocarpus scapharostrus in April/May 1930, but it was already mentioned (as Ariocarpum scapharostrum) by Paul Schmidt in June 1929 (in Gartenbauwirtschaft 26: 8. 1929).