Tim,
At least for the plant Eremophila, the meaning is desert loving from the
Greek eremia a desert and philo- loving You can find the roots in Stearn's
Botanical Latin (thereby also allowing a nice pun). For the bird there are
two options: desert loving as above or solitude loving (see Jobling's
Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names). My Greek dictionary gives
(transliterated) ereemos for desert and ereemeea for solitude or wilderness
so you might have to go to the type description to find out the truth. I
don't know where the Larks live - HBW hasn't got up to them yet.
regards (and keep philologising)
Ian
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>From: "Timothy Nye Dolby" <>
>Organization: RMIT Publishing - Informit
>To: "Trevor Hampel" <>,
>Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 10:03:44 +1000
>Subject: Re: birding-aus Plants and birds
>Reply-to:
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>> My wife is an avid grower of Australian native plants. She also has more
>> than a passing interest in birds. Yesterday as we had lunch in our sun
>> room, we were delighted to have 9 New Holland Honeyeaters giving one
>> particular plant a thorough going over for their lunch.
>> The plant was an Eremophila metallica, a low shrubby spreading plant
>> covering some two square metres and no more than 50 cm high. The
>> resident Singing Honeyeaters, Spiny Cheeked Honeyeaters and Red
>> Wattlebirds are also frequent visitors to this plant, though these are
>> somewhat more genteel eaters than the enthusiastic New Hollands.
>
>Just on a side note - the plant family Eremophila shares
>its name with a group of Larks - such as Eremophila
>alpestris (Horned Lark) and Eremophila bilopha (Temminck's
>Lark).
>
>Also Eremophila glabra, or the 'emu bush', is particularly
>attractive to birds.
>
>Eremophilla (as far as I can work out) is a reference to
>a 'hermit', or to the 'recluse' - so presumably both birds
>and plants were considered hard to find?
>
>Tim
>
>
>
>
>
>__________________________
>Tim Dolby
>Product Manager
>RMIT Publishing - Informit
>RMIT University (03) 9341 3271
>
>http://www.rmitpublishing.com.au
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Ian Endersby
56 Looker Road
Montmorency Vic 3094
AUSTRALIA
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