FEATURES/ORIGINFeatures/Origin

Name Origin

This species was discovered, collected, and published by Aloe researcher Jean-Bernard Castillon, who lives in Madagascar. So—is the name his own? Actually, naming a species after oneself is surprisingly rare, both in the past and today.

Instead, the species name is a dedication not to himself, but to his wife, Bernadette Castillon, a horticulturist from Réunion Island.

If he’d meant to honor himself, the name would typically be in the male singular form, castillonii; but the feminine form, castilloniae, was chosen for this reason.

About the "wrong birthplace" seen around the world

The true native habitat is a limestone outcrop on the "Mahafaly Plateau" in southeastern Madagascar—this comes straight from Jean-Bernard Castillon himself, the definitive primary source.

There are plenty of articles and documents that mention "Joffreville" as the locality, but after looking into it, it's pretty clear this is an internationally repeated mistake (with a wink).

For starters, Joffreville is actually in northern Madagascar, the exact opposite of Mahafaly—and there isn’t any other Joffreville recorded in the southeast.

OK, maybe—just maybe—there’s another, unmarked Joffreville hidden somewhere in the south-east. But the type specimen and the IPNI bibliographic records make no mention of Joffreville. The name starts to pop up unexpectedly in a number of secondary sources, often phrased as if Mahafaly Plateau is simply "near Joffreville," making it sound as if it’s a well-known location (which wouldn’t help if Joffreville were just a tiny village). All signs point to a mistake that snuck in somewhere and stuck around.

Because this error traces all the way back to some foundational secondary sources, nearly every "must-see plant site"—like World Of Succulents, LLFILE, and GBIF—has adopted it as well.

At this point, trying to correct it everywhere is just about impossible, so let’s accept it for what it is (smile). (And this isn’t the only time errors in plant names have stuck around practically forever—if you look, you’ll find lots of examples. Humans make mistakes!)