Brodiaea - Taxonomic History

Taxonomic History

Specimens of Brodiaea were first collected by Archibald Menzies, botanist to the Vancouver Expedition, in 1792. Menzies collected the plant from the vicinity of the Strait of Georgia, named New Georgia by George Vancouver.

The first published reference to the plant appears in James Edward Smith's 1807 An introduction to physiological and systematical botany, where Smith used it to argue that the tepals of liliaceous plants are sepals rather than petals:

"I cannot conceal a recent discovery which strongly confirms the opinion of my acute and candid friend. Two species of a new genus, found by Mr. Menzies on the West coast of North America, have beautiful liliaceous flowers like an Agapanthus, with six internal petals besides!"

The following year, Richard Salisbury published the first Brodiaea species in his Paradisus Londinensis, but placed it in the genus Hookera as Hookera coronaria. Smith disagreed with this placement, and in April 1808 read a formal description of a new genus before the Linnean Society of London, naming the genus in honour of Scottish botanist James Brodie (1744–1824). Formal publication did not occur, however, until Smith's presentation went to print in 1811.