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271
The Folk-lore of Plants
·
T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
146
The
cat
has
come
in
for
its
due
share
of
plant
names,
as
for
instance
the
sun-spurge,
which
has
been
nicknamed
cat's-milk,
from
its
milky
juice
oozing
in
drops,
as
milk
from
the
small
teats
of
a
cat;
and
the
blossoms
of
the
talix,
designated
cats-and-kittens,
or
kittings,
probably
in
allusion
to
their
soft,
fur-like
appearance.
Further
names
are,
cat's-faces
(Viola
tricolor),
cat's-eyes
(Veronica
chamcaedrys),
cat's-tail,
the
catkin
of
the
hazel
or
willow,
and
cat's-ear
(Hypochaeris
maculata).
The
bear
is
another
common
prefix.
Thus
there
is
the
bear's-foot,
from
its
digital
leaf,
the
bear-berry,
or
bear's-bilberry,
from
its
fruit
being
a
favourite
food
of
bears,
and
the
bear's-garlick.
There
is
the
bear's-breech,
from
its
roughness,
a
name
transferred
by
some
mistake
from
the
Acanthus
to
the
cow-parsnip,
and
the
bear's-wort,
which
it
has
been
suggested
"is
rather
to
be
derived
from
its
use
in
uterine
complaints
than
from
the
animal."
Among
names
in
which
the
word
cow
figures
may
be
mentioned
the
cow-bane,
water-hemlock,
from
its
supposed
baneful
effects
upon
cows,
because,
writes
Withering,
"early
in
the
spring,
when
it
grows
in
the
water,
cows
often
eat
it,
and
are
killed
by
it."
Cockayne
would
derive
cowslip
from
cu,
cow,
and
slyppe,
lip,
and
cow-wheat
is
so
nicknamed
from
its
seed
resembling
wheat,
but
being
worthless
as
food
for
man.
The
flowers
of
the
Arum
maculatum
are
"bulls
and
cows;"
and
in
Yorkshire
the
fruit
of
Crataegus
oxyacantha
is
bull-horns;--an
old
name
for
the
horse-leek
being
bullock's-eye.
Many
curious
names
have
resulted
from
the
prefix
pig,
as
in
Sussex,
where
the
bird's-foot
trefoil
is
known
as
pig's-pettitoes;
and
in
Devonshire
the
fruit
of
the
dog-rose
is
pig's-noses.
A
Northamptonshire
term
for
goose-grass
(Galium
aparine)
is
pig-tail,
and
the
pig-nut
(Brunium
flexuosum)
derived
this
name
from
its
tubers
being
a
favourite
food
of
pigs,
and
resembling
nuts
in
size
and
flavour.
The
common
cyclamen
is
sow-head,
and
a
popular
name
for
the
Sonchus
oleraceus
is
sow-thistle.
Among
further
names
also
associated
with
the
sow
may
be
included
the
sow-fennel,
sow-grass,
and
sow-foot,
while
the
sow-bane
(Chenopodium
rubrum),
is
so
termed
from
being,
as
Parkinson
tells
us,
"found
certain
to
kill
swine."
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