A genus of evergreen shrubs native to North America with distinctive catkin flowers, commonly called silktassel.
Named after Nicolás de Garry, a 19th-century Hudson's Bay Company fur trader. The genus was formally described by botanists who honored influential figures in the fur trade. The plant became associated with the explorer's name through scientific nomenclature.
It's wild that some plants got their scientific names from fur traders rather than botanists—Garrya reminded naturalists of an important middleman in Western exploration who never set foot in a laboratory.
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