Dead-man’s fingers is a fine uncanny name for the innocent Orchis maculata, and refers to its branching white tuber.
Garlick is a very ancient name, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon gar, a spear, and leac, a plant; in the name house-leek the word still bears its original meaning of a plant.
Tragopogon, the goat’s beard, which closes its flowers about mid-day, was once known as go-to-bed-at-noon.
The pansy has been called Herb trinity from the triple colouring of its petals. In Welsh, and also in German, the pansy is called stepmother. The lower petal is the most decorative, and this is the stepmother herself. On examining the back of the flower it will be seen that she is supported by two green leaflets, known as the sepals. These are called her two chairs. Then come her two daughters, less smart, and having only a chair apiece. Lastly, the two step-daughters, still more plainly dressed and with but one chair between them.
Polemonium, from its numerous leaflets arranged in pairs, has received the picturesque name of Jacob’s ladder. I remember the pleasure with which I first saw it growing wild in the hayfields of the Engadine.
Polygonatum, i.e. Solomon’s seal, has been christened Scala cœli, the ladder to heaven, on the same principle. The name Solomon’s seal is not obviously appropriate till we dig up the plant, when the underground stem is found marked with curious scars, which, however, should be pentagonal if they are to represent Solomon’s pentacle.
Herb twopence (Lysimchia nummularia) is so named after the round leaflets arranged in pairs along its creeping stalk. I do not know why Inula conyza is called ploughman’s spikenard, but it is a picturesque name.
Everyone knows the garden plant touch-me-not, so called from the curious irritability of its pods, which writhe in an uncanny way when we gather them. This quality is expressed twice over in the Latin name Impatiens noli-me-tangere. But there is a
forgotten old English name which pleases me more, viz., quick-in-the-hand, that is to say alive-in-the-hand. This use of the word survives in the familiar phrase “the quick and the dead.”
The English name of Echium vulgare is viper’s bugloss—this I had always imagined referred to the forked tongue (the style) which projects from the flower. But it is said to be so named from the seeds resembling a viper’s head. This is certainly the case, and what can be the function of the little knobs on the seed, which represent eyes, I cannot imagine. The name bugloss is derived from the Greek and means ox-tongue—no doubt in reference to the plant’s rough leaves.