100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names (18 page)

Lady's mantle was an important magical plant. Unlike most plants, which get rid of their excess water as vapor, it exudes water during the night in the form of dewdrops around the rim of the leaf. These droplets, which a seventeenth-century herbal called “pearls that falleth in the night,” were considered magical and added to the medicinal importance of the plant. It was thought to be a powerful aphrodisiac, giving “lust to the worke of generacyon” (Culpeper). John Gerard said it “keepeth down maidens paps or dugs . . . when they be too great and flaggie”—a problem difficult to cope with in the era before the bra.

It was called lady's mantle because of the shape of the leaves,
which look like a soft green cloak. However, such a mantle was not necessarily seen just as a covering but also something that, if possible, a man might get under. Before books were available and widely read, plants and their shapes, habits, and flowers were often used as illustrations of life—and some were raunchy illustrations, full of sexual innuendos. Most of the “lady” flowers originally suggested the parts or possibilities of women. When Christianity arrived in Britain the early fathers converted flowers as well as people. “Lady” flowers were ingeniously transformed into “Our Lady” flowers—symbols of the blessed Virgin Mary. Lady's mantle was now the softly draped cloak wrapping the mother of God. What made this more appropriate was the fact that the flowers are parthenogenic and can set seed without fertilization—a fact not understood by early church fathers but maybe observed. When the Puritans came to power in England they disapproved of “Popish nonsense”—and “Our Lady's” flowers became “lady's” flowers once again. The name stuck, and when
Alchemilla mollis
, a bigger alchemilla and the one we grow in our gardens, was introduced from Turkey in 1874, it remained “lady's mantle.”

These droplets, which a seventeenth-century herbal called “pearls that falleth in the night,” were considered magical and added to the medicinal importance of the plant.

BOTANICAL NAMES
:
Consolida, Delphinium
.
FAMILY
:
Ranunculaceae
.

The larkspur and its close relative, the delphinium, are both named from the shape of their flowers. The larkspur flower looks a bit like the claw of a bird, and the delphinium flowers, “especially before they be perfected” (Gerard), resemble the bottle-like nose of the dolphin,
delphis
being the Greek for “dolphin.”

The first garden larkspurs, annual natives of Britain, were called
Delphinium consolida
, “made solid,” referring to the medicinal properties of the plant. Both it and the
Delphinium ajacis
, now
Consolida ajacis
, which was introduced to Britain about 1573, were thought to be efficacious against poisonous stings, and both plants, like all Ranunculaceae, are poisonous. They were used, dried and powdered, as very effective insecticides.

The
ajacis
part of the annual larkspur's name comes from the
legendary Greek hero Ajax, who almost killed Hector by throwing a great stone at him. Achilles finally finished Hector off with a spear. Afterward, when Paris killed Achilles by shooting an arrow into his vulnerable heel, Achilles's armor was to be given to the most valiant of the Greeks remaining, and the choice was between Ajax and Odysseus. Minerva tilted the vote in Odysseus's favor, since she valued intelligence mixed with valor, and poor Ajax was not particularly bright. Ajax, completely dishonored, lost his reason temporarily and mistook the sheep around the camp for his rivals. He went berserk, killing sheep and beating to death a ram that he took to be Odysseus. When he finally came to his senses, he realized what he had done, and his only honorable way out was to kill himself. He flung himself onto his sword, and from the blood that fell to the ground sprang larkspurs. Their petals (like those of the hyacinth) are marked with the Greek letters
AI
, the Greek cry of mourning.

As they were getting ready to defend themselves, the barrel of Nuttall's gun was found packed with dirt—he had been using it to dig up plants.

The American larkspur,
Delphinium nuttallianum
, was found by and named after Thomas Nuttall, who explored and botanized in Oregon and northern California. It was used by West Coast Indians to make a blue dye and by European settlers to make ink. Nuttall was known as “Le Fou” by contemporaries. He canoed down rivers even though he could not swim, and
on one occasion his party was threatened with an Indian raid; as they were getting ready to defend themselves, the barrel of Nuttall's gun was found packed with dirt—he had been using it to dig up plants. He would probably have settled in America had it not been for his English uncle's bequest of an estate on condition that he live there, and he died in England. He had a beautiful garden at Nutgrove—where at least he would have been able to grow delphiniums. Even the annual larkspur does not last well in hot, humid American gardens, and perennial delphiniums often have to be renewed each year. We don't need them to make lethal powders either, for we've learned, too well, since the days of Ajax, to make better weapons against insects—and one another.

Their petals are marked with the Greek letters
AI
, the Greek cry of mourning.

BOTANICAL NAME
:
Lavandula
.
FAMILY
:
Lamiaceae
.

Washing (to the extent that all but certain small boys practice it nowadays) is fairly new in the West. But the name of lavender is not new; it comes from the Latin
lavare
(to wash). Lavender was used from ancient times to make perfumes and to scent such soaps as there were.

The Romans washed and took frequent baths in public bathhouses, but after the fall of the Roman Empire, the bathwater was tossed away with the rest of that civilization. Even royalty seldom washed; they used perfume liberally instead. Elizabeth I took a bath occasionally, but James I/VI never even washed his hands, which he “rubb'd” with the wet edge of a napkin. Water in sixteenth-century England was often contaminated with sewage and washing in it probably would not have been very healthy anyway. One of the lures of colonists to the New World was that the water was so pure it could even be drunk and “those that drinks it be as healthful, fresh and lustie, as they what drink
beere” (Captain John Smith). Even so, somehow out of all this filth and pollution flowered some of the most beautiful literature that has ever been.

Soap, when available, was very expensive. In 1562, four pounds of gray soap cost twice as much as a whole pig (which was sixpence) and six times as much as a dozen eggs, but almost anyone could grow lavender, and it was so common that in 1568 the botanist William Turner said it “were but lost labor” to describe it. It was one of the cheaper perfumes, which were an important part of hygiene. Lady Macbeth, when agonizing over that bad “little hand” of hers, does not talk of soap and water but of “all the perfumes in Arabia.” But of course she could have afforded something better than lavender water.

Lady Macbeth, when agonizing over that bad “little hand” of hers, does not talk of soap and water but of “all the perfumes in Arabia.”

Real perfumes were, as they are now, pretty expensive. Workmen handling frankincense in Alexandria were “sowed up and sealed” into their breeches so they could not conceal it in body crevices. Lavender water was easy to make, but pure oil of lavender was a luxury. It takes two thousand pounds of blossoms to make ten pounds of distilled lavender essence.

By the nineteenth century, soap and water had come into fashion and the use of perfumes was suspect. Henry Phillips, writing in the 1820s, called the use of perfumes in men an “effeminate practice”
brought to Rome from Greece and said “we would recommend the old practice of laying clean linen in lavender, in preference to throwing the extract of it on dirty clothes.”

Although introduced to Britain early, lavender is probably native to the Mediterranean (some say it may originally have come from India). It likes chalky dry soil and bright sunshine, and although it can die back and grow up again from the roots in spring, it doesn't stand extreme cold.