Book Review: 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names, by Diana Wells
100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names will not make you a better gardener, but it should make you a more amused and informed gardener. And it may provide you with the material for some witty or scholarly remarks you could mention casually at next summer’s garden walks.
Diana Wells provides brief, entertaining, and erudite background on the names of 100 popular garden plants. Often she adds tidbits about people with whom said plants are associated.
Here are a few samples:
- The name Nasturtium (Tropaeolum) comes from the Latin for “twisted nose”. This is because the pungent smell makes some people wrinkle their noses.
- For centuries Yarrow was used medicinally, for example to slow bleeding. The botanical name, Achillea, derives from Achilles using the plant to treat his soldiers’ wounds. The common name comes from the Anglo-Saxon gaerwe, meaning to prepare, as people thought Yarrow could prevent illness.
- The subject of bleeding leads me to Hyacinth (Hyacinthus), a beautiful youth loved by Apollo. Unfortunately, the young man received an accidental but fatal head wound. While dying in Apollo’s arms, a flower grew from Hyacinth’s bloody forehead. Apollo’s lovers had a habit of turning into plants. Maybe he should have tried to get them covered under his insurance.
- Iris are named after a messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. The fleur-de-lis is actually an iris (I always thought it was a Lily). Irises growing in the water enabled King Clovis of the Franks to identify a shallow river crossing he used to escape hostile Goths. After that it was the symbol of the Kings of France. Louis VII had irises on his banners during the Crusades. They were called fleur de luis, which then became fleur-de-lis.
If this is the kind of thing you appreciate, then read 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names. If it isn’t, then I have nothing for you at the moment.
Now here’s a totally unrelated question. Has anyone else discovered that WordPress no longer allows you to word searches of your photo gallery? All of a sudden all I can do is call them up by month of posting.
gardeninacity 
Sounds like a great read and a fun conversation piece for gatherings!! Love things like this!!! Have a great end to your week Jason! Nicole
You would probably enjoy this book, Nicole.
Hi Jason. I’ve got this book too! Great for dipping into over dark winter evenings! I just checked and found you are right about the wordpress search for photos changing. How annoying. I wonder if there’s any alternative way to find photos… must take a look later as I used that search feature often.
P.S. Just found there’s a search field if you use the left-hand bar where the dashboard is: select media and then library.
Thanks for pointing that out, I tried it and you can search. But I don’t think you can reach this function when you are trying to add an image to a post. Annoying is right.
Fun and interesting. You inadvertently made me understand the Italian word for hyacinth which is giacinta (pronounced giàchinta). If the ‘h’ is missing (doesn’t exist in the Italian alphabet and the ‘y’ which they also don’t use sounds like a soft ‘g’ (as the ‘j’ in justice) and of course ‘th’ is another problem so ‘t’ then the word is the same! I hadn’t thought of it just hearing the word or seeing it written in Italian. So thank you Jason.
Oh, it was nothing.
This is informative (and funny) on so many levels Jason, great post!
Thanks!
I attended a gardening program yesterday that included photos of dead ants with mushrooms growing out of the back of their heads. Not quite as poetic as hyacinths, is it?
They must have been really tiny mushrooms.
Jason, are you trying to search the Media Library? I was able to select All Media Items and All Dates and the results for my search crossed years. Thanks for the fun review of this book. Looks interesting.
I was trying to search images of a particular plant, and there is no longer a place to search by text when you try to find an image to insert into a post.
This type of book sounds interesting and fun to me–the kind I like to pick up and read parts of now and then. I already knew some of the mythological origins like iris, hyacinth, and narcissus, just from reading those myths, but I’ve often wondered about others. Like lungwort–such an ugly name for a pretty plant.
Yes, it’s the type of book you can pick up and then put down for a few days or weeks. But I had to read it in one go.
This book sounds interesting. No, I hadn’t noticed I could word search for photos. But, I sure was confused when I tried to access my dashboard and it wasn’t there for a while. I think there should be a standard version for those of us above a certain age who like the format to stay the same. 🙂
I agree, don’t you hate it when they ‘improve’ things after you’ve just gotten used to them?
Thank you. I love this sort of book. I will look out for it. For Rose’ s question: the name Lungwort came about because it was used to treat lung diseases. The blotched leaves were thought to look like diseased lungs. According to the Doctrine of Signatures, God made a plant look like an organ of the body that it would cure.
Thanks for the explanation, I was vaguely aware of the Doctrine of Signatures. Incidentally, this same author has written a book about trees and about how birds got their names.
Knowing the true names of things can be kind of magical.
Why it is forbidden to say the true name of God in Judaism. You’re actually supposed to use various pseudonyms (eg, King of the Universe) or simply The Name (HaShem).
What a fascinating and interesting book, I love facts and myths connected to plants, I used to write them down when I came across them then gave up when I filled about thirty notebooks….sighs….blog problems have been a pain for me recently….I can search but maybe that’s because I have my own website?xxx
I’m impressed, I was never organized enough to write such things down.
I’ve been reading a similar book called “The History and Folklore of North American Wildflowers” by Timothy Coffey. It’s out of print but worth searching for.
I’ll have to look this one up.
I’ve never tried searching Word press in that way. Sorry.
Sounds like a good book to search out.
This sounds like my kind of book. I love factoids about gardening. :o)
I think you’d enjoy it, Tammy.
Hmmm… I could see being interested in that book. I’ll have to look it up. You had me chuckling with your responses–especially the one about Apollo’s insurance.
Even Roman Gods need insurance (I hear the traffic is horrendous over there).
First I did not know that about searching on WP…and second this book would be a great one for me. I have several books and other resources I use when I look for info on plants I profile…
You should write some reviews of your favorites, Donna.
Interesting tidbits about flowers. Thanks for the review.