■*08 Popular Plant Names. 



garden by the wild violets and pansies, is not known with us by 

 the many titles it has elsewhere in Britain and on the continent, 

 and, poetic as is our term of heart's-ease, it is not so quaint as 

 some of the following: — Herb trinity, forget-me-not, three-faces- 

 under-a-hood, love-and-idle, love-in-idleness, live-in-idleness, 

 call-me-to-you, flamy, pink-o'-mj'-John, tittle-my-fancy, kiss-me- 

 ere-I-rise, kiss-me-at-the-garden-gate, jump-up-and-kiss-me, or 

 cuddle-me-to-you. The name of love-in-idleness has Shake- 

 spearian sanction, seeing that Oberon tells Puck to procure for 

 him the little western flower, called by maidens love-in-idleness. 

 A north-east of Scotland and Scandinavian word for it is step- 

 mother ; while the old Saxon names for the violet were simmering 

 wort and banwort. 



Most of us are familiar with the name lady's smock, for 

 cardamine pratensis, but not many in our district know of it as 

 the cuckoo flower, so given because, as Garard tells us, it flowers 

 when " the cuckoo doth begin to sing her pleasant notes without 

 stammering." A purely Kirkbean name, at least so far as I can 

 learn, for this plant is carsons, but why applied I can never 

 ascertain, except that it may be considered that it only grows 

 on carse land. 



Centaurea nigra is called the horse-knot, a name which 

 seems with us to be applied to other members of the genus, as 

 I have heard centaurea montana spoken of as the horse-knot, and 

 also as the blue bonnet. Other names for centaurea nigra are 

 hard-head and iron-head. Cornflower is, however, fast creeping 

 in as the name for almost all the centaureas, but we have, of 

 course, the blue-bottle, bluet, blue-blow, and hurt-sickle as 

 applied to them. 



Wandering sailor is rather vaguely used for at least three 

 plants to my knowledge. These are lysimachia nummularia, the 

 moneywort ; saxifraga sarmentosa, the mother-of -thousands ; and 

 sedum reflexum, one of the stonecrops. I have also heard sedum 

 oppositifolium called deil's barley and daun'rin' Kate; while, as 

 you all know, saxifraga umbrosa is the London pride or none-so- 

 pretty, corrupted into Nancy Pretty. It is also Prattling Parnell, 

 St. Patrick's cabbage, and Queen Anne's lacework. According 

 to a Devonshire writer, the local name of this plant about Exeter 

 is the lengthy one of " Meet me, love, behind the garden door." 

 I mav observe that the name of London Pride has nothing to do 



