Thurrock Local History Society – 21 March 2025
Dr Twigs Way – Exploring Traditional Wildflower Names
AT our March meeting we welcomed the return of Dr Twigs Way, this time talking about traditional wildflower names. Some are quite vulgar, copying body parts, their invention nonsensical and fabulous.
Basically their names followed what they looked like, smelled like, the time of flowering and where.
Wildflowers have many different names, so many different ways of use, even from Saxon times. In the 19th century amateur botanists were scorned by academics, using scientific names. Some traditional names have been lost, replaced by Latin ones. In the early 20th century there was a revision of folk lore, when people tried to return to old names such as nosebleed, starchwort, lords and ladies (cuckoo pint) and jack in the pulpit. Others were nipplewort, or sticky willy. Coltsfoot was used in brewing, then there was field balm and hurt sickle.
Herb Robert had red stalks. Other names were stinking bob and death come quickly (American). Also cranes bill, storks bill or doves’ feet. Horsefoot was used for colds and coughs, an alternative to tobacco.
Animals and birds were well represented: cow parsley (fed to cows and sheep), hogweed or cow mumble, hawkweed (devil’s paintbrush), foxtail and goats’ beard. Foxes and fairies were often confused, hence foxgloves or Our Lady’s gloves. Bears’ garlic is a mystery, there being no bears in the region. Many plants had dog in their name, several more with rose: dog violet, dog mercury (not poisonous).
There were those named after people, i.e. bob, Jack, William including jack by the hedge, ragged robin, bouncing Bet (soapwort). Others were named for when they flower – May bells, cuckoo flower or lady’s smock. Those showing where they grow include cornflower, corn poppy, corn cockle, corn rose, water crowfoot, frogge bit, cart track plantain, bread and cheese.
Medicinal names and worts, also used for cooking, were flea wort and sneeze wort, showing what life was like in mediaeval times! Also master wort (ground elder), bishopweed (gout weed). The Doctrine of Signatures cover plants that look like parts of the body they cured, i.e. walnuts (like brains) for headaches, lungwort, pilewort. Worts were not always useful – i.e. stinking hellebore. There was also sneeze wort for toothache, feverfew (bachelors buttons) – anti-inflammatory or for melancholy – comfrey (knitbone) and stachys, said to cure 47 different diseases.
Banes were poisonous: fleabane, henbane, hogsbane, wolfsbane. There were also fun names – ladies’ tresses, love in idleness, Venus’s basin (where it was said you could see the face of your future husband), heartsease, love in idleness (no reward), jackanapes on horseback (oxlips), shepherd’s purse, pigs pettitoes (egg and bacon plant) and piss-a-bed (dandelion). Fruits were also represented: medlar – open arse – synonym for an elderly prostitute!
Some common names were very specific, most varying widely from area to area, bearing no relevance to today. This was a hilarious lecture, with illustrations to match, Twigs Way entertaining us in her usual fashion.
Our next meeting is at 7.30pm at St John’s church hall, Victoria Avenue, Grays, on Friday 25th April, when our AGM will be followed by a talk from Scott Sullivan on Tilbury Riverside Station. Visitors are welcome.
