James Bond is in the news.

But not THAT James Bond, it’s the OTHER James Bond from whom THAT James Bond got his name.

Let me explain. Novelist Ian Fleming often wrote books while on vacation in Jamaica. In February, 1952, he was there working on a story about a secret-agent, and one of the key requirements for the character was that he have a killer name. It just so happened that Fleming had on his desk a reference book entitled, “Birds of the West Indies,” written by an accomplished American ornithologist, who happened to live on the island, and who happened to be named James Bond.

Fleming loved the name – as he explained many years later in a letter to Bond’s wife – because it was “brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine.” He asked the non-fiction James Bond for permission to appropriate his name for a fictional James Bond, and it was granted. Between February and March, Fleming wrote, “Casino Royale,” which was published in 1953 and which would be the first of 12 James Bond novels Fleming would write while on holiday each year in Jamaica, from 1953 to 1964. (Fun facts: the second one was “Live and Let Die.” And the third was “Moonraker,” which envisioned a lot of space travel technology for a story published in 1955!)

By 1958, when Fleming published “Dr No,” the sixth in the series, James Bond the spy had developed quite a following. So much so that, in 1961, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman decided to adapt “Dr. No” for the screen, with Sean Connery playing James Bond. Upon its premiere in 1962, it was a huge hit that went on to earn $60MM at the box office (worth about $450MM in today’s dollars), and subsequently spawned a 24-installment film franchise that has generated over $7B worth of revenue worldwide.

All of which totally overshadows the original James Bond. But, as an ornithologist, the real James Bond was no slouch. Over a lifetime of hard work, he won numerous awards, including the Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica in 1952; the Brewster Medal from the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1954; and the Leidy Award from the Academy of Natural Sciences in 1975. His original book on Caribbean birds, published in 1936, remains a classic. And he lived to be 89, passing away in Philadelphia in 1989 (the year the film License to Kill came out).

And now, the work of the birding Bond has been recognized again, in a completely new way. Two scientists have discovered a new sub-genus of four tropical plants that grow throughout the Caribbean. And they decided to name this sub-genus after the not-so-famous man who spent his life trudging through the areas where these plants live, looking for interesting avian specimens (as opposed to traveling the world, drinking martinis, having sex with dangerous strangers, and killing people.)

And so – sorry 007 – this time the original gets his due. Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting the newest addition to the world of botanical taxonomy.

Bondia…er…”Jamesbondia.”