The Folk-lore of Plants

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."