Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Left:?? Roses are one of the special attributes of Saint Dorothea, as shown in the detail of this stained-glass panel; Right: Rosa gallica officinalis blooming in Bonnefont garden. Remarkably, the rose has retained its ancient name in dozens of modern languages.
The rose has been known by the same name throughout Europe since antiquity. It began as vrda in ancient Persia (related to the modern Arabic warda) and became known as rhodon to the nearby ancient Greeks. (Oddly, the modern Greek for rose is triantafillo, meaning “thirty leaves,” while rhodon remains in our “rhododendron,” meaning “rose tree”). By the time of the Roman Empire the name had become rosa, immediately recognizable in most modern European languages???rosa (Italian and Spanish), roos (Dutch), ros (Swedish), rosier (French)???and many others, including the Japanese rozu.
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Tags: carline thistle, Dioscorides, etymology, herb robert, Hildegard of Bingen, Linnaeus, Physica, rose, Theophrastus
Posted in Botany for Gardeners | Comments (2)
Friday, July 30, 2010
Above: Three images of the blessed thistle (Cnicus benedictus). The low stature and unremarkable appearance of this plant belie its medieval reputation as a plague cure and a panacea. The lax stems and spiny, light green leaves are covered with a fine, white down; the spines that subtend the developing flowerhead are a protection against grazing animals. The yellow flowers of this annual thistle appear in July; once the seeds have set, the plant dies. Photographs by Corey Eilhardt.
The humble Cnicus benedictus, a plant of waste ground and stony soil native to the Mediterranean, was a medieval panacea whose reputation survived undiminished into the Renaissance. The sixteenth-century English herbalist John Gerard notes that this wild medicinal plant of southern Europe was “diligently cherished in gardens in these Northern parts.” Gerard also attests that the herb was known everywhere in Europe by the medieval Latin name Carduus benedictus; the common names by which it is known today preserve this designation: blessed or holy thistle in English, benedikten distel in German; chardon b??nit or chardon santo in French, cardo benedetto in Italian, cardo bendito in Spanish.
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Tags: bitter, blessed thistle, Carduus benedictus, carline thistle, cataplasm, cnecos, Cnicus benedictus, Dioscorides, earbes Carduus Benedictus and Angelica, invasive, John Gerard, Maude Grieve, panacea, pestilence, plague, Pliny, Rufinus, Silybum marianum, thistle, Thomas Brasbridge, weed
Posted in Gardening at The Cloisters, Medicinal Plants | Comments (1)
