In Gloucestershire the plantain is called the fire-leaf, a name which records the belief that plantains are a danger in the way of heating hay-stacks.
The word madder, i.e. the name of the plant which supplies the red dye for the trousers of our French allies, has a curious history. Madder is derived from mad, a worm, and should therefore be applied to cochineal, the red colouring matter produced by the minute creature called a coccus. But still more confusion meets us: the word vermilion which is now used for a red colour of mineral origin, is derived from vermis, a worm, and should therefore also be applied to cochineal. The word pink, one of the most familiar of plant-names, has a curious origin, being simply the German
Pfingst, a corruption of Pentecost, i.e. the fiftieth day after Easter.
The tendency to make some kind of sense, or at least something familiar, from the unfamiliar, comes out in name service-tree (Pyrus torminalis). It has nothing to do with service, being simply a corruption of cerevisia, a fermented liquor. The fruit was used for brewing what Evelyn in his Sylva, chap. xv., declares it to be, an incomparable drink. Prior says that the French name of the tree, cormier, is derived from an ancient Gaulish word courmi, which seems to suggest the modern Welsh cwrw, beer.
Tansy (Tanacetum) is believed to be simply a corruption of athansia, immortality. I gather that we got the name through the French athanasie, in which, of course, the th is sounded as a t. In all probability it was originally applied to some plant more deserving of being credited with immortality.
A few miscellaneous names may here be given. Thorough wax is a name for Chlora perfoliata, also known as yellow wort. Its leaves are perfoliate, i.e. opposite and united by their bases so that the stem seems to have grown through a single leaf.
Kemps, i.e. warriors, was a name of the common plantain, with which children used to fight one against the other. I remember this as being an unsatisfactory game because one so constantly killed one’s own kemp instead of the enemy.
Herb Paris is simply the plant with a pair of leaves; it should, however, have been described as having four leaves. Thus the name has nothing to
do with Paris, the capital of France. But some plants have names of geographical origin; the currants or minute grapes used for making cakes are so called because they come from Corinth. So that we are quite wrong in applying this same name to the familiar companion of the gooseberry in our gardens. In the same way damsons are so called because they are said to have come originally from Damascus.
The name Canterbury bell has a very interesting origin, namely, that bells were the recognised badge of pilgrims to the shrine of St Thomas at Canterbury. One of these bells was found in the bed of the Thames when old London Bridge was pulled down. It is said to be “about the size of an ordinary handbell, with a flat top, on which is an open handle, through which a strap could easily be passed to attach it to a horse’s collar.” This bell is known to have been associated with Canterbury by the inscription Campana Thome on the outer edge. The pilgrims seem to have journeyed cheerfully. It is written that some “pilgrims will have with them bag-pipes; so that in everie towne they come through, what with the noise of their piping, and the jangling of their Canterburie bells, etc., they make more noise than if the king came there away.”