Pothoofdplant

Dutch
Het Pothoofd.

Alternative forms

Etymology

Compound of Pothoofd +‎ plant; the Pothoofd was once a major transloading site in the port of Deventer in The Netherlands, back when Deventer was still an important port connected to the North Sea via the Zuiderzee and the river IJssel (today it is cut off from the ocean due to the damming in 1932 of the Zuiderzee, which is now a lake). The Pothoofd became a hotspot among botanists c. 1900 due to the prevalence of rare non-native plants which germinated there from seeds accidentally imported from distant lands (adventives), causing Pothoofdplanten to become, for some decades, emblematic for the phenomenon of adventive plants in the Netherlands in general.

Noun

Pothoofdplant f (plural Pothoofdplanten, diminutive Pothoofdplantje n)

  1. (historical, botany) An adventive, particularly one found around the Pothoofd in Deventer, The Netherlands.
    Hypernym: adventief

References
  • Ton Denters, Stadsflora van de Lage Landen pp. 361-362 (2020).
  • Gerrit Hendriksen and Martin Heinen, Pothoofdflora. Van havennaam naar begrip, in Planten 20, pp. 6-8 (2023).

Further reading
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