54 PLANT NAMES 



name Hound^s Tongue. This Greek word, kuon, is in 

 " cynic " — that is, one who behaves like a dog, I 

 suppose with the contemptuous demeanour towards 

 you of someone else's dog. It also comes into 

 Cynara, the Artichoke, because the spines on the 

 involucre were likened to dogs' teeth. Fern is from 

 an ancient Sanskrit word parna, meaning a feather. 

 Lycopodium, or Club Moss, is the wolf's foot. Lupin 

 is from lupus, a wolf. No one seems to know why 

 the Romans called it so. Ricinus, the Castor Oil 

 Plant, means a tick, because its seeds resemble that 

 horrid pest. Tigridia, the Tiger Lily, got its name 

 from the flowers, which are spotted like a tiger. 

 Mimulus, the Monkey Plant, is called from the 

 fancied resemblance of the flower to the grinning face 

 of an ape. The Greek word for an imitator or an 

 actor was mimos, and this gave them a name for the 

 monkey, because he mimics man. The same idea 

 is contained in Mimosa, because some species, 

 M. pudica and M. sensitiva, by the irritability of 

 their leaves, which close at a touch, imitate animal 

 sensibility. 



In this section, too, we have pitfalls. We must 

 not, for instance, suppose that Gooseberry has any- 

 thing to do with geese. " Goose " here is a corrup- 

 tion of the old French groise, or hairy. Foxglove is 

 probably Folk's Glove — that is, the glove of the folk 

 or fairies.* Nor does Dogwood, or the Dog Rose, 



* Some have derived " fox " here from the 'Latin fuscus, 

 tawny or swarthy. But fuscus would not well describe the 

 colour of the Foxglove flower, and it is not likely that our 



