Saturday, April 9, 2011

But is it a Rosa damascena or a Rosa gallica?

There is a library book which I have borrowed about four times, and for which I have paid late fines of about ten euro. When I saw this was going to continue, I finally bought my own copy. To me, it is as enjoyable as a box of chocolates. It has the array of choice, the collection of intriguing little descriptions, the mix of familiar and exotic names. It is the 'Complete Guide to Irish Wildlife' (Collins). Nothing warms my pedant's heart more than distinguishing Pignut from Cow Parsley, or Winter Aconite from Meadow Buttercup.

Of course Shakespeare asked 'What's in a name?' and a few years later Richard Feynman made the valid point that knowing the name for something isn't the same as knowing anything about its intrinsic qualities. (Although I believe this was because, as a kid, his friend knew the name of a bird & he didn't, and some decades and a Nobel prize later he still wasn't over it). Knowing the name of a plant doesn't necessarily tell you anything about it, but its name is like a key, and the key opens a chest of all the information ever shared about the plant. So I'd say knowing the name of something is pretty important.

I've always liked the name 'Groundsel'. Groundsel is a humble little weed that grows out of cracked paths and on roadsides. It seeds like a dandelion, only its seedheads are tiny, about a centimetre in diameter. Knowing its name makes it more pleasant to me. I recognise it, which is not the same as merely seeing it.

If you imagine a name as a key, you can imagine that the key will have qualities of its own. It might be a plain, uninteresting little key, or it might be ornate with curly bits and possibly gemstones. 'Groundsel' would be blackened copper, smallish, with maybe a subtle little flourish - the head (or bow) would be shaped like a clover-leaf, perhaps, as it would in an old-fashioned key. Groundsel sounds fittingly humble; happy, it would seem, to accept its low stature. I suppose I get this impression from the first bit, the 'ground' bit. Then it has a little slender 'sel' which suggests the old-fashioned, pretty bow. Groundsel. Because I know the name of it, every time I see it I remember a story I read when I was about six, the heroine of which sold groundsel when her evil stepmother turned her out on the streets. Apparently people bought it to feed to their budgies. (If you have a budgie, I take no responsibility for the possible ill effects of groundsel.)

The keys travel, sometimes all over the world, and when they do this they are often re-cut, but there will be something about the the bow that looks like it was made in Greece, or you'll find it is a copper key, from the mines of middle Europe. You can trace back its journey in a good dictionary.

I lay the little copper key on the page starting with grogshop and across from it, in the column beginning ground laurel, I find it.
- There you are! 'Ground'sel'... Why are you blushing? I didn't know copper could blush... it says, n. 1 A common herb of the composite family (genus Senecio), having yellow tubular flowers. 2 Groundsill. [OE gundaeswelgiae, lit., - stop rolling about! I'm reading this! - that swallows pus- ... - that swallows- ... -that swallows pus (with ref. to its use in poultices)...
-Oh.

Yes. Groundsel was used to draw on boils, and its name, deep down, reflects this. Funnily enough it was on an alternative medicine website where I saw its name being translated as 'ground swallower' because it 'grows so fast it seems to eat up the ground'. Hmm. I still don't know if the writer actually had reason to believe this, or if she just wanted to ignore the existence of pus in the world.

I said to the plant - you've always got your Latin name.
- Senecio Vulgaris.
- Vulgar Old Man.
- ...
Then I said - You know Richard Feynman?