SOMETHING TO INTEREST YOU.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19052, 16 September 1933, Page 15 (Supplement)

SOMETHING TO INTEREST YOU.

FLOWER LORE. Has it ever occurred to you to wonder how flowers got their names? Ido not mean the long Latin names you learn In your botany lessons at school, but the dear old names by which ordinary people have called them for countless generations. When one begins to look Into the matter, one can hardly ever discover any particular historical person who named any particular flower. Think of the names we all know—forget-me-not, pansy, snapdragon, foxglove, buttercup, daisy, violet, and a h£st of others—the reason why these names are so beautiful and Why we could not possibly change them, Is that, so to speak, they just Vgrowed" like Topsy in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”; and It is always the things that grow that are really most interesting. They were names given to the flowers by the country people w’ho had grown up with them, playing In the woods, meadows, and country gardens, and who had learnt to love them; and therefore gave them just exactly the right names. All the other people who heard the names felt at once that they were suited to the particular flowers, and adopted them for their own; and so the names spread and spread until they -were used all over the country, and sometimes in other countries as well. —By Blanche Trundle (14). i*ae yv AM fiw* m M *** *