Names of flora and fauna

[aeolium]

Perhaps this is not the right board for this thread, but I was struck by this article by Richard Mabey yesterday about English popular names for flowers and creatures. I have always liked the older names of flowers such as eglantine, meadowsweet, nightshade, windflower - you could almost construct a floral equivalent of the Shipping Forecast just to have the sensual pleasure of listening to the sounds of the words. I agree with Mabey that these words are for poets, the Latin names for scientists and gardeners (not that the latter cannot be poets ).

I was wondering if posters had any particular examples of older usages of flower or wildlife names in literature that they liked and would like to share.

[umslopogaas]

If I went through all my natural history book collection trawling out old names I should think I'd be working for days, but at the moment its raining and I dont feel like doing the garden, so here's a start. From A History Of British Birds by T. Bewick (1816):

Barn Owl - Gillihowlet
Tawny Owl - Howlet
Great Butcher Bird or Great Ash-Coloured Shrike - Murdering Pie
Red-Backed Shrike - Flusher (I promise I'm not making this up)
Magpie -Pianet
Song Thrush - Throstle, or Mavis
Redwing - Swinepipe
Cuckoo - Gowk
Green Woodpecker - Woodspite
Greater Spotted Woodpecker - Witwall
Bullfinch - Alp, or Nope
Chaffinch -Shilfa, Scobby or Skelly
Siskin - Aberdevine
Skylark -Lavrock
Robin - Ruddock
Fauvette - Pettihaps (Motacilla hippolais Lin. I've never heard of this one)
White Throat - Muggy
Stonechat - Moor-Titling
Bluetit - Nun
Night-jar - Goat-Sucker
Ring Dove - Cushat, or Queest

Here endeth the first lesson, there's another volume to go. Then, on to Sowerby's English Botany, only twelve volumes there.

[mercia]

and your particular favourites ....................?

[umslopogaas]

Difficult to choose, the list was already a selection of the ones that most tickled my fancy, but I particularly like Throstle, Muggy and Queest. Sounds like a firm of solicitors set up as an alternative to Sue, Grabbit and Runne.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Mole - mouldwarp (= earth-thrower). IIRC it comes in Hamlet.

Local moles have been warping a good deal of my garden mould this year so my lawn, never very flat, is now like a small mountain range

[aeolium]

Thanks for those examples, umslopogaas, though I was wondering which ones would have cropped up in novels or poems. Mouldiwarp also crops up (less illustriously, perhaps) in E Nesbit's House of Arden which I read an aeon ago. Meadowsweet and willowherb are in Edward Thomas' Adlestrop, and there is also throstle and hewel (woodpecker) in Marvell's lovely poem Upon Appleton House (popinjay another word for woodpecker). I think T H White had some good insights into Shakespeare's nature references in one of his books, perhaps The Goshawk. I must say I had never thought of 'chimney-sweepers' in the Cymbeline song as being other than a literal description.

[Mary Chambers]

There are so many! A lot of the references I can think of come from children's literature. Alison Uttley was very keen to preserve old country names, and I've always known about Moldywarp the Mole and Fuzzypeg the Hedgehog because I had her books woth those titles. Beatrix Potter has Brock the badger and Mr Tod the fox - both old names for the animals. Then there is Robert Louis Stevenson:

All their names I know from Nurse
Gardener's Garters, Shepherd's Purse,
Bachelor's Buttons, Lady's Smock
And the Lady Hollyhock.

Shakespeare has his 'streak't gillyvors' in Winter's Tale, and there must be many others in his works. I was always told giliyflowers were wallflowers, but it seems they were probably clove-scented pinks, perhaps extended to any sweet-smelling flower. Another wonderful name for pinks was sops-in-wine.

I'm fond of Housman's poem The Lent Lily -

And there's the windflower chiily
With all the winds at play
And there the Lenten lily
That has not long to stay
And dies on Easter Day.

The 'Lent Lily' is the wild daffodil, the windflower is one of very many names for the wood anemone.

[agingjb]

"All the Birds of the Air" by Francesca Greenoak (I think there's a later book as well) is another good reference for local and historic bird names.

It's ironic that the scientific names, that are supposed to provide a precise reference to each species, keep changing - the Gannet is now Morus bassanus (was Sula bassana), and the Blue Tit is now Cyanistes caeruleus (was Parus caeruleus).

[David Underdown]

But they only change to reflect new knowledge about the true relationships between species, which are much easier to establish now with DNA analysis, and the old ones are retained as synonyms. Common names, especially for plants may refer to different things in different places (ie the same name may be used for entirely different purposes)

[Mary Chambers]

As long as they don't change troglodytes troglodytes Could there be a more delightful name for Jenny Wren?

Pies and daws are often styl'd
With Christian nicknames, like a child.

(Jonathan Swift)

We all know Mag Pie and Jack Daw.

[mercia]

troglodytes troglodytes

why is it called that? I thought troglodyte meant cave-dwelling

[Mary Chambers]

I think it's because wrens like to go into holes and crevices to find food, mercia.

[vinteuil]

I think it's because wrens like to go into holes and crevices to find food, mercia.

... or perhaps more specifically, the wren's nest is a sphere with a hole, like a cave, rather than the usual bird's nest like a bowl...

[mercia]

oh right, fair enough (isn't pan troglodytes a chimpanzee? - rather off topic)

am I right that noli-me-tangere is a balsam whose seeds sort-of explode when you touch the plant?

[vinteuil]

As long as they don't change troglodytes troglodytes .

Troglodytes troglodytes is one of my faves too... I also like Buffo buffo, and of course Turdus turdus - and perhaps especially the hoopoe - Upupa epops...