{"id":6377,"date":"2018-06-01T16:58:37","date_gmt":"2018-06-01T16:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.siteandinsight.com\/?p=6377"},"modified":"2018-06-01T16:58:37","modified_gmt":"2018-06-01T16:58:37","slug":"whats-in-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/whats-in-a-name\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in a Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw this wildflower in the woods last week and was surprised to learn its botanical name, Cardamine diphylla.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"cardamine<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was surprised because only a week or so ago, I looked up the name of\u00a0another plant, now growing in damp areas in\u00a0the garden and in the fields at Glen Villa. Its botanical name is Cardamine pratensis.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Lady's

Lady’s smock or milkmaids is growing beside the Glen Villa pond. It has bloomed for several weeks.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is the relationship between the two Cardamines? Are they first cousins or distant relatives? Or, as Shakespeare would have us ask, do their names make them enemies?<\/p>\n

Cardamine diphylla<\/em> is a spring woodland plant found in moist woodlands in most of eastern North America.\u00a0In Quebec it\u00a0blooms\u00a0in mid to late May, and into June in cooler years. The word\u00a0diphylla<\/em> means the plant has two leaves or leaflets.<\/p>\n

Cardamine pratensis<\/i>\u00a0is an alien, native throughout most of Europe and Western Asia.\u00a0 The\u00a0word\u00a0pratensis, <\/em>Latin for meadow,\u00a0identifies its preferred location. It blooms when cuckoos arrive in the U.K., which explains one of its common names, cuckoo flower. Other common names are\u00a0lady’s smock, milkmaids and mayflower.<\/p>\n

C. pratensis<\/em> is a food plant for the orange tip\u00a0butterfly,\u00a0and its botanical name\u00a0 (Anthocharis cardamines<\/i>) marks that connection.\u00a0 (Since humans once used it as a substitute for watercress, I suppose it might have been called Anthocharis hominis<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

In folklore the flower was said to be sacred to fairies; because of that, it was unlucky to bring it indoors and the flowers were never used in May garlands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Milkmaids

Milkmaids are happily growing in the field in front of Lilac Cottage.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The native plant, Cardamine diphylla<\/em>, goes by the name crinkle root, or pepper root, or (less colourfully) broadleaf toothwort. Like lungwort or butterwort, the ‘wort’ in its name suggests it was once used as food or medicine — ‘wort’ comes from\u00a0an old German word\u00a0related to ‘root.’<\/p>\n

Broadleaf toothwort or (my favourite) crinkle root, was used by many indigenous people in North Ameria. The Abenaki who lived in my part of Quebec used it as a condiment. The Algonquin used it to treat fevers and heart disease.\u00a0 The Iroquois chewed the raw root\u00a0as a remedy for stomach gas and\u00a0drank a cold infusion of the roots for \u00ab\u00a0when love is too strong.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"This

Does anyone know\u00a0why an infusion made with Cardamine diphylla would cool the blood?<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What unites these plants, apart from their ‘surname’? Both have small white flowers with four petals, and are members of the mustard family, which includes all plants with four-petaled flowers. But the mustard family is large, and the genus Cardamine<\/em> grows worldwide in diverse habitats. In northeastern America, there are 15\u00a0species with that name. Looking at photos, it is easy to see family resemblances between some, but as with families in general, other members look quite different.<\/p>\n

Less scientifically, both of the Cardamines<\/em> growing at Glen Villa are edible, either by insects and humans. I’m not planning to serve either at dinner, though — the native plant’s most frequently used name is bittercress.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw this wildflower in the woods last week and was surprised to learn its botanical name, Cardamine diphylla.     I was surprised because only a week or so ago, I looked up the name of\u00a0another plant, now growing in damp areas in\u00a0the garden and in the fields at Glen Villa. Its botanical name…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,21],"tags":[790,791,792,37,318],"class_list":["post-6377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-glen-villa","category-plants","tag-botanical-names","tag-cardamine-diphylla","tag-cardamine-pratensis","tag-glen-villa","tag-wildflowers","category-38","category-21","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}