NATURE NAMES IN AMERICA n 



And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, 

 Do paint the meadows with delight, 



Shakespeare, however, never once mentions ' buttercup ' and we are left 

 to infer the fact that it was buttercups that he had in mind, for it is 

 given as such in old vocabularies. Cuckoo-bud is a charming name, and 

 in England is suggestive of the time of year when the cuckoo begins to 

 sing. But, alas, our American cuckoo is a dismal failure as a vocalist, 

 though his morals are unimpeachable, and we have no good reason for 

 calling flowers after him. 2 



A number of familiar plant names occur in the writings of the old 

 herbalists, as in Gerarde's Herbal (1597), and in Parkinson's Paradisi 

 In Sole (1629), which contains 'The Garden of Pleasant Flowers.' 

 Here we find such names as crowfoot, toad-flax, snapdragon, columbine, 

 dittany, golden-rod, dog's-tooth violet and many more that sound pleas- 

 antly of wayside places. A large class of names are adoptions, applied 

 to plants more or less different from those that bore the original names 

 in England. Thus 'wake robin,' given locally in Great Britain to a 

 species of arum, has been transferred in America to the species of 

 Trillium. ' Jack-in-the-box,' a local name of the English arum, appears 

 in America as ' jack-in-the-pulpit,' bestowed upon a closely related 

 plant. Name after name of familiar American herbs and trees may 

 thus be traced back to the provincial speech of England. 3 It might 

 even be possible to trace certain of the settlers back to the district in 

 England from which they emigrated by the local names which they 

 gave to certain plants in America. This at least offers an inviting field 

 for the student of folk-lore. 



Of the names that are purely American in origin we have a few well- 

 known examples that have been derived from the Indian peoples. 

 Puccoon seems to have been a general name for plants that furnished 

 a juice used by the natives for dyeing and for decorating their bodies. 

 Clayton in the 'Flora Virginica' (1739) thus designates the blood- 

 root (Sanguinaria) , and it is the common name of several species of 

 gromwell (Lithospermum) which yield a yellowish juice, of the yellow- 

 root (Hydrastis), and also of the poke- weed (Phytolacca) the berries 

 of which stain a deep purple. The word ' poke ' is probably a corrup- 



2 A great variety of English wild flowers have been called after the cuckoo, 

 but few if any have survived in American speech. The cuckoo's name appears 

 not only among plants, but in numerous other objects and customs as a sur- 

 vival of old English rural life. Thus, the term ' cuckoo-ale ' which is found in 

 provincial dialects, is ' ale drank to welcome the cuckoo's return.' " A singular 

 custom," acccrding to Wright, " prevailed not long ago in Shropshire, that as 

 soon as the first cuckoo had been heard, all the laboring classes left work, and 

 assembled to drink what is called the cuckoo ale." The sweet influence of the 

 hedge-row was evidently close to the heart of these simple country folk. 



3 Dogwood, for example, is a name having no reference to the animal, but 

 is derived from the old English dagge — a skewer, the wood having been used by 

 butchers for this purpose. Witch-hazel has nothing whatever to do with 

 witches, notwithstanding its repixted powers in divination, but is borrowed 

 from the wych-elm, the wood of that tree having been used in making chests 

 called ' wyches.' (Prior.) 



