Appendix

Naenia was a dirge or lamentation, equivalent to the Greek Drēnos (Δρῆνος), such as was uttered at funerals, either by relatives of the deceased or by hired persons. At Rome Naenia was personified and worshiped as a goddess, who even had a chapel, which, however, as in the case of all other gods in connection with the dead, was outside the walls of the city, near the Porta Viminalis. The object of this worship was probably to procure rest and peace for the departed in the lower world; this may be inferred from the fact of Naeniae being compared with lullabies, and they seem to have been sung with a soft voice, as if a person was to be lulled to sleep.
https://pantheon.org/articles/n/naenia.html.
(I6)

Naenia was a dirge or lamentation, equivalent to the Greek Drēnos (Δρῆνος), such as was uttered at funerals, either by relatives of the deceased or by hired persons. At Rome Naenia was personified and worshiped as a goddess, who even had a chapel, which, however, as in the case of all other gods in connection with the dead, was outside the walls of the city, near the Porta Viminalis. The object of this worship was probably to procure rest and peace for the departed in the lower world; this may be inferred from the fact of Naeniae being compared with lullabies, and they seem to have been sung with a soft voice, as if a person was to be lulled to sleep.
(Int)

Daniel Nebel (1664-1733), German professor of medicine at Heidelberg and Marburg, and his son William Bernhard Nebel (1699-1748). Daniel worked as a doctor and apothecary at Heidelberg hospital and Sapienzkolleg from 1708 to 1728, and was the personal physician of Elector Carl Philip at his court in Mannheim. He was also a prolific author and published works on botany and medicine. William was also a physician and botanist, professor of math, physics and medicine at Heidelberg. The genus Nebelia in the Bruniaceae was first proposed in 1790 by Belgian botanist, physician and mycologist Noel Martin Joseph de Necker but the publication was considered invalid. Later, in 1830, it was validly published by British botanist Robert Sweet. (Lexicon rei Herbariae by Georg-Rudolph Boehmer; Commentatio botanico-literaria de plantis in memorium cultorum nominates by Georg-Rudolph Boehmer; Heidelberg Historical Society)
(Ch)

Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (1776-1858), German botanist and physician, zoologist, professor of botany and botanical collector, who described about 7,000 plant species, almost as many as Linnaeus; his special interest was fungi. He was President of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and his last act was to admit Charles Darwin as a member. He was the author of Das System der Pilze und Schwämme, Dissertations and pamphlets on natural history, botany, geology and zoology, 1698-1881, and many others. His brother was the botanist Theodor Friedrich Ludwig Nees von Esenbeck. The genus Neesenbeckia in the Cyperaceae was published in 1947 by South African botanist, taxonomist and phytogeographer Margaret Rutherford Bryan Levyns. In southern Africa there are a number of taxa that either currently carry or formerly carried the epithet of neesii, which I presume without being able to confirm it were intended to honor Nees von Esenbeck. These include Brachymenium neesii (now B. dicranoides), Melica neesii (now M. decumbens), Elegia neesii, Hypodiscus neesii, Restio neesii (now Ischyrolepis sieberi) and Charieis neesii (now Felicia heterophylla). Other than the two brothers, I know of no one else by this name for whom such commemorations would be made. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; Wikipedia)
(Ch)

Nemesis, personified as the goddess of retribution, who brings down all immoderate good fortune.
Nemesis, an avenging goddess, who represents the righteous anger of the gods, particularly towards the proud and insolent.
Both a goddess and an abstract concept. In her divine form she is attributed with a myth: she was one of the daughters of Nyx (the Night) and was beloved by Zeus but tried to evade the god's embrace, assuming a thousand different forms and finally changing herself into a goose. Zeus became a swan however and coupled with her. Nemesis laid an egg which some shepherds picked up and gave to Leda. From this egg came Helen and the Dioscuri. This legend shows the symbolic value of Nemesis who personifies divine vengeance. Sometimes she is the goddess who, like the Erinyes, punishes crime, but more often she is the power charged with curbing all excess, such as excessive good fortune, for example, or the pride of kings. This illustrates a basic concept in Greek thought: any man who rises above his condition, for good or ill, exposes himself to reprisals from the gods since he risks overthrowing the order of the world and must therefore be punished.
(LS, Bu, PG)

Said by PlantzAfrica to be derived either from Nerine, the Greek mythological sea nymph, daughter of sea god Nereis and Doris and granddaughter of Pontus, or from Nereide, daughter of Doris and Nereus and granddaughter of the Titan Oceanus and his sister Tethys. Both these references seem to be the same since Doris is descended from both Oceanus and Pontus, but I can find no mention of Nerine as a specific nymph, but rather as one of the names applied overall to the fifty daughters of Nereus, who were also known as Nereides (or Nereids). According to the Greek Myth Index, the name Nerine was a patronymic derived from their father's name Nereus, and the name Nerine is not included in any list I can find of the Nereids. Nerines are also known sometimes as Guernsey lilies because supposedly (and this may be apocryphal) a box of bulbs washed ashore from a possible shipwreck and became established there. The genus Nerine in the Amaryllidaceae in 1829 by British botanist William Herbert. Nerines had been in cultivation for some time and is it possible that Herbert had heard this story and therefore in his naming made the association with the sea? (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; PlantzAfrica; Greek Myth Index)

The Nereids were sea-deities, daughters of Nerus and Doris, and grand-daughters of Oceanus. They can possibly be said to personify the countless waves of the sea. Their number is usually set as fifty, but in some accounts there are thought to be as many as a hundred.
The Nereids are said to have lived at the bottom of the sea, seated on golden thrones in their father’s palace. They were very beautiful and they spent their time spinning, weaving and singing. The poets picture them playing in the waves, letting their hair float around them, and swimming to and fro amid the Tritons and dolphins. They appear most frequently in legends as spectators, rarely taking part in the action.
The Nereids were sea-deities, daughters of Nerus and Doris, and grand-daughters of Oceanus. They can possibly be said to personify the countless waves of the sea. Their number is usually set a fifty, but in some accounts there are thought to be as many as a hundred.
The Nereids are said to have lived at the bottom of the sea, seated on golden thrones in their father's palace. They were very beautiful and they spent their time spinning, weaving and singing. The poets picture them playing in the waves, letting their hair float around them, and swimming to and fro amid the Tritons and dolphins. They appear most frequently in legends as spectators, rarely taking part in the action.
(Ch, PG)

(David) James Niven (1776-1827), sometimes recorded as Nevin, an avid Scottish gardener and plant collector. The seed of N. corymbosa was collected by Niven on one of his journeys to Cape Town (1798-1803), and the seed was raised in the garden of his patron, George Hibbert, in Clapham, London. Plants flowered there for the first time in 1805 and were described as Witsenia corymbosa. Niven was gardener at the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh and at Syon House, Middlesex. He spent more than a dozen years at the Cape collecting herbarium specimens, seeds and bulbs, first during the period 1798-1803. He had only been back in England for three months when he returned to South Africa as a botanical collector for the Empress Josephine of France and this time spent nine years there. He ranged as far east as Grahamstown in the eastern Cape and to Clanwilliam in the northwest returning to England 1812 where he set up his own business, unrelated to botany. Contrary to popular myths, his wife Alison Abernethy Niven did not die the instant his corpse left the door of their house, but some weeks later, and he was not the father of (nor was connected in any way with) Ninian Niven, one-time curator of the Royal Dublin Society's Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin. The genus Nivenia in the Iridaceae was published in 1808 by French botanist Étienne Pierre Ventenat. His name was placed on Serruria nivenii, Erica neviniana and the former Gladiolus nivenii (now synonymized to G. carinatus). There are several other species with this epithet but I can't say for sure who they are named for since there is at least one other Niven who collected in South Africa. James Niven was also commemorated in the genusNivenia in the Proteaceae published in 1810 by British botanist Robert Brown which is now considered illegitimate and has become Paranomus. NOTE: His birth and death years are uncertain. The Dictionary of Irish Botanists and Horticulturists and the website of the National Archives have c. 1774, and the Harvard University Herbarium database of botanists have it listed as both 1774-1826 and 1776-1826. IPNI, and Tropicos both have it as 1774-1826. JSTOR in one place says 1774-1826 and in another 1776-1827. Gunn & Codd list it as 1776-1828. An article by E. Charles Nelson and John P. Rourke in the Kew Bulletin is entitled "James Niven (1776-1827), a Scottish Botanical Collector at the Cape of Good Hope," and gives his dates as 28 Sep 1776- 9 Jan 1827. A page from the McNab Herbarium at the National Botanical Gardens, Glasnevin, also gives 1776-1827. Also his name is given variously as James David Niven and David James Niven, although the latter appears to be correct. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; Article on James Niven in Kew Bulletin Vol. 48, No. 4 (1993) by E. Charles Nelson and John P. Rourke; Gunn & Codd)
(Ch)

Petrus (Peter, Pierre) Nylandt (ca.1635 – 1710?), Dutch botanist, physician, and prolific author. He published some 50 works on a wide range of topics such a bee-trafficking and garden design, mainly in Dutch from between 1670-1710, many of the publications with co-authors. His major works are considered to be Herbarius Belgicus (1670) which was the first record of the flora of the Low Countries (presumably, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), De Nederlandtse herbarius of kruydt-boeck (The Dutch Herbal or Herb Book) (1682) which not only describes all medicinal plants and herbs, growing wild, or cultivated in the Netherlands, but also the dried herbs from overseas found in chemist shops and Den Verstandigen Hovenier (The Intelligent Gardener). Nylandtia spinosa was first described as Polygala spinosa by Linnaeus in 1751 and 1753. The Belgian botanist Barthelemy Dumortier (1822) recognized that it belonged to a genus different from Polygala and named it Nylandtia for some unknown reason. The genus Nylandtia in the Polygalaceae was published in 1822 by Belgian botanist Barthélemy Charles Joseph Dumortier. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)
(Ch)

The Nymphs were spirits who peopled the countryside, woods and streams. They were the spirits of the fields and of nature in general, personifying its fecundity and gracefulness. They lived in grottos where they spent their time spinning and singing. There are several categories of Nymphs which correspond to their habitats. The Naiads lived in springs and streams. Being deities familiar in popular imagination they appear, like our fairies, in many folk stories.
In Greek mythology nymphaia referred to a water nymph. Linnaeus published the genus Nymphaea in the Nymphaeaceae in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)
(PG, Ch)

The personification of night, and its goddess. She was the daughter of Chaod inthe Hesiodic Theogony, and mother of two elements, Aether and Hemera (Day), and also of a whole set of abstract forces: Morus (Destiny),the Keres, Hypnus (Sleep), the Dreams, Momus (Sarcasm), Distress, the Moirae (Fates), Nemesis, Apate (Deceit), Philotes (Tenderness), Geras (Old Age) Eris (Discord), and lastly Hesperides, who were the Daughters of Evening. Her realm was in the far West beyond the the land of Atlas.
(PG)