Some Floral Etymologies 
borhoods of expressions once universal, but now out of 
vogue and forgotten by most who consider themselves edu¬ 
cated, for time was when the word rose far from being 
restricted to the queen of flowers, was used to signify blos¬ 
soms in general. Thus the guelder rose was, and still is, 
a viburnum, and the corn rose of Britain a poppy. Simi¬ 
larly, the term violet was employed by ancient writers to 
denote many flowers not of the pansy tribe, and in that 
little wild lily, the so-called dog’s tooth violet, the name 
survives to puzzle amateur plant philologists with every 
return of spring. 
There is another bit of etymology awaiting our investi¬ 
gation in the fields and low meadows, which just now are 
frosted over with the flat-topped, whitish flower clusters 
of the thoroughworts. There are half a dozen different 
sorts of these that one may gather in the course of an 
August afternoon’s ramble, best known of which is that 
old stand-by of the herb gatherers, the bitter boneset. The 
scattered leaves of this plant grow in pairs, joined at the 
base, so that the stalk seems to run through them like a 
skewer, and here we have the explanation of that curious 
other name, the thoroughwort, which has come to us from 
old England. There it was once applied to an herb whose 
stalk in the same way grew “thorough” the “wort”—that 
is, “through the herb.” The tonic effect of our plant upon 
the human system when taken in the shape of a tea, putting 
strength, as it were, into one’s bones, appears to be respon¬ 
sible for its commoner name. 
The country, unusually fresh and green this summer, has 
presented few lovelier sights of late than the tasseled corn- 
[83] 
