114 OLD ENGLISH FLOWER NAMES 



has been some confusion here between the classical 

 amaranthus and amor. So also the Solanum lycoper- 

 sicum, named pomi del Mori or Saracen apples by 

 Italian gardeners, was glossed pommes d'amour by the 

 French, and love-apples by our own people, till these 

 borrowed the American name ' tomato.' The straggling 

 goose-grass, too, clinging with its myriad burrs to the 

 coats of men, derives its popular name, loveman, from 

 that habit, and not from any amatory suggestion. 



School Boards and other engines of mealy-mouthed- 

 ness have laid their ban on many venerable plant- 

 names, and it must be owned that the true meaning 

 of wake-robin and cuckoo-pint is best exchanged for 

 the general suggestion of vernal growth with which 

 they invest the common hedge arum. The spotted 

 orchis 



' long purples, 



That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, 

 But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them ' 



seems to have lost all but the last of these titles ; and 

 it is not difficult to foresee that before long the linger of 

 the Inquisition will be laid upon the common name of 

 the meadow saffron, called 'naked ladies/ when its pink 

 flowers rise shivering without leaves from the mould in 

 autumn days. But never let ' our cold maids ' blush to 

 welcome Cardamine pratense as Lady's-smock ; for the 

 reference herein, and in other names such as the Lady's- 

 mantle (Swedish ' Mariekapa '), is to ' Our Lady.' 



Names designed for one plant often get transferred 

 to another. Thus woodbine and honeysuckle are 



