Boldu

Bol·du

ˈbälˌdü

taxonomic synonym of peumus

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin, borrowed from American Spanish (Chile) boldú, boldo "the plant Peumus boldus," borrowed from Mapudungun foḻo

Note: International Plant Names Index (ipni.org) attributes this taxon to Albert Brown Lyons' Plant Names Scientific and Popular (Detroit: Nelson, Baker, 1900), p. 65, though Lyons merely draws the name, apparently on grounds of priority in relation to Giovanni Ignazio Molina's Peumus, from Michel Adanson's non-Linnean name Boldu in Familles des Plantes, 2. partie (Paris, 1763), p. 446. Adanson, in turn, refers to the description in the priest and botanist Louis Feuillée's Histoire des plantes medecinales [sic] qui sont le plus en usage aux Royaumes du Perou & du Chily … composée dans les années 1709. 1710 & 1711, an appendix to his Journal des observations physiques, mathématiques et botaniques … sur les côtes orientales de l'Amérique Méridionale, & aux Indes Occidentales (Paris, 1725; the third of three volumes dealing with Feuillée's voyages, the first two having been published in 1714). Feuillée provides an illustration of "Boldu arbor olivifera" (Plate VI) and a description (pp. 11-12). As a vernacular form boldu would seem to be supported by boldú, given as a variant of boldo in Francisco Santamaría, Diccionario general de Americanismos, tomo 1 (México, D.F., 1942). The form boldu also appears in Amédée-François Frézier's Relation du voyage de la Mer du Sud, tome 1 (Amsterdam, 1717), p. 137. See also note at boldo