eucalyptus: [19] Europeans first encountered eucalyptus trees in Australia at the end of the 18th century. The French botanist Charles Louis l’Héritier based its Latin name, which he coined in 1788, on the fact that its flower buds have a characteristic conical cover (the Greek prefix eumeans ‘well’ and Greek kaluptós means ‘covered’).
evergreen genus of Australia, 1789, from Modern Latin, coined 1788 by French botanist Charles Louis L'héritier de Brutelle (1746-1800) from Greek eu "well" (see eu-) + kalyptos "covered" (see Calypso); so called for the covering on the bud.
