The Folk-lore of Plants

As the authors of "English Plant Names" remark (Intr. xv.), many north-country names are derived from Swedish and Danish sources, an interesting example occurring in the word kemps, a name applied to the black heads of the ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata). The origin of this name is to be found in the Danish kaempe, a warrior, and the reason for its being so called is to be found in the game which children in most parts of the kingdom play with the flower-stalks of the plantain, by endeavouring to knock off the heads of each other's mimic weapons. Again, as Mr. Friend points out, the birch would take us back to the primeval forests of India, and among the multitudinous instances of names traceable to far-off countries may be mentioned the lilac and tulip from Persia, the latter being derived from thoulyban, the word used in Persia for a turban. Lilac is equivalent to lilag, a Persian word signifying flower, having been introduced into Europe from that country early in the sixteenth century by Busbeck, a German traveller. But illustrations of this land are sufficient to show from how many countries our plant names have been brought, and how by degrees they have become interwoven into our own language, their pronunciation being Anglicised by English speakers.