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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The potato is another name-usurper. For in ^le form of Batata, or 

 Patata, it was the specific name of a species of Convolvulus. The 

 tuberous roots of this Convolvulus were used as the potato is now used. 

 In Shakespeare's ''Let the sky rain potatoes" it is supposed to be the 

 tubers of this Convolvulus which are referred to. They were brought to 

 Spain from the West Indies, and thence imported here. They were in 

 use as a delicacy before the advent of the present potato, and are now 

 known as "sweet potatoes." 



The sunflower, which, according to Moore, 



turns on her god when he sets 

 The same look that she turned when he rose, 



is not the original owner of the name. For it appears that the word 

 " sunflower" was used in English literature before this plant was brought 

 over from its native haunts in North America. It is conjectured that the 

 original sunflower was the English marigold, which has the requisite 

 disc-like form and appropriate yellow colour. 



And according to its botanical name, Helianthemum, the rock-rose 

 is also a sunflower. And the same property attributed by Moore to the 

 sunflower is expressed in the name of that favourite flower the helio- 

 trope, which means sun-turning. The real heliotrope is a member of the 

 Borage family, while the so-called winter heliotrope, the fragrant 

 coltsfoot, is one of the Compositce. 



Henbane is the name of the poisonous Hyoscyamus niger. It is 

 usually explained as hen-bane, a bane, or poison, to hens, because it was 

 supposed to be specially fatal to fowls and other gallinaceous birds. But 

 we note that Shakespeare calls it "cursed hebenon," which hardly bears 

 out this explanation. And Gower, the friend of Chaucer, writes of 

 " Hebenus, that Sleepy tre." Spenser, again, writes of a " heben bow, 

 spear, and lance." The Hebenus was therefore a tree, and bows were 

 made of it. This suggests the yew, and further investigation confirms 

 the suggestion. For Dr. Nicholson, in 1879, and the Rev. W. A.Harrison, 

 in 1882, showed that the symptoms described as occurring in poisoning 

 by Hebenon were such as are produced by the yew, and by no other 

 poison. It has also been shown that the name of the yew in many 

 northern tongues, especially in that of Denmark, is very similar to 

 Hebenon. Thus it appears that the henbane, Hyoscyamus niger, is 

 wearing the slightly altered ancient name of the yew tree. 



Many names which should be restricted to one genus are used 

 so as to include species often belonging to widely different orders. 

 Take the word "nettle," for example: the nettle, botanically Urtica, 

 belongs to an order which includes hemp and the elm tree. The dead 

 nettle and the hemp nettle, on the other hand, belong to the widely 

 separated Labiate order. 



The term " lily " should be restricted to the genus Lilium, but it has been 

 extended in popular language to a number of plants usually belonging to 

 different orders ; thus the lily of the Nile is of the Arum family ; the 

 Lent lily is a Narcissus ; the water-lily belongs to the Nymphceacecs ; the 

 shepherd's lily, one of the conspicuous flowers of the New Zealand Alps, 

 and which perhaps gets its name from the fact that its large saucer- 



