🌵 Author(s) | Adrian Hardy Haworth |
🌵 Type | Mammillaria mammillaris |
Latin mămilla (also mammilla) ‘nipple’ + Latin –āria, a suffix Haworth often used to create generic names. For the nipple-like tubercles (and possibly the milky sap of some species).
The spelling was often corrected to Mamillaria in the 19th and early 20th century, but since the genus was conserved (as Mammillaria) against the older algal genus Mammillaria Stackhouse (1809) in 1930, the original spelling has found universal acceptance. Britton & Rose published the replacement name Neomammillaria in 1923, when Mammillaria Haw. was still an illegitimate younger homonym of Mammillaria Stackhouse, but this name is now superfluous.
Maarten H.J. van der Meer (2023 Jul 14). Mammillaria. Dictionary of Cactus Names. Retrieved from https://www.cactusnames.org/mammillaria