What’s in a name? Well, everybody who’s had a halfway decent English teacher knows that dandelion is derived from the Anglo-French phrase “dent de lion” (lion’s teeth, from the leaf’s indented teeth). But did you know that tulip comes from the Turkish “tülbent,” meaning turban; or that the petunia’s name is from the Tupi word petíma for tobacco, stemming from how the two plants are botanically related; or that azalea is Greek for dry, parched and withered, so named for its ability to thrive in a dry climate?

Probably not, unless you subscribe to Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day.

It’s my guess that the author of that piece probably has a copy of Diana Wells’ 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names, along with William T. Stearns’ Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners. And I suspect his or her copy is as tattered as mine is. 

So let’s start with the dogwood, our state flower, whose wood was supposedly used to build the Trojan horse and whose berries turned Odysseus’ men into pigs. That, according to Wells, who also says the tree’s leaves, bark and berries “have been used to intoxicate fish, make gunpowder, soap and dye, make ink and clean teeth.” You’ve doubtless heard the legend that the old, rugged cross was made of dogwood, and Jesus, feeling the tree’s remorse, transformed it henceforth into a twisted dwarf so that it could never be used for another crucifixion. As for its name, I’m understandably partial to the 1922 theory of L.H. Bailey that its leaves were used to shampoo mangy dogs.

The pine, our state tree, springs from the Latin “pinus,” which etymologists guess (they do a lot of that) derives from a form of the verb “pie,” which means “to be fat or to swell,” with their opining it’s a reference to the pine’s sap or pitch.

Let’s just skip over orchid, which comes from the Greek “orchis,” meaning testicle. And who wants to dwell on the origin of forsythia, named after English gardener William Forsyth, whose recipe for Forsyth’s fruit-tree-healing plaster consisted of cow dung, lime and wood ashes amplified by a splash of soapsuds and urine?

Let’s just go back to Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day, which once featured plant names that sound like insults. Go ahead, call someone a hoary vervain, stink bell, bladderwort or a dodder. I could go on and on, but my editor has a thing about brevity. So I’ll close with my favorite names of wildflowers — whorled tickseed (whorled means a pattern of spirals or concentric circles), Jacob’s ladder, sweet William, Dutchman’s breeches, foam flower, American boneset, Joe Pie weed, white turtlehead and lanceleaf blanket flower. Pure poetry on the stem or vine.  What is it about our wanting to know the names of plants and animals, as if that little tidbit of knowledge gives us some kind of power? And what is it about a plant’s name that seems so intriguing? As my guide once blurted out after two weeks on a tributary in the furthest reaches of the Amazon River, “Bailey, most people just want to know the name of the dingus, and once told, they shut up. But you’re relentless and keep asking questions.” I told him that it was in my job description as a reporter and an incredibly nosy parker. Besides, I said, I was an English major — until I changed my major to Classical Greek. He just shook his head.