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Flowers of the Aquilegia genus (AquiCredit: SA Hodges, MA Hodges, D Inouye)
One of my favorite spring flowers suffers unjustly from a tainted name. When visitors to my garden see the beautiful dark colors and delicate fairy shapes of this plant and ask its name, I am always loathe to say “columbine” because people then want to talk about the infamous high school shooting which took place in Colorado in 1999 at Columbine High School (columbines grow naturally in Colorado and are the state flower there). Indeed when I googled the name of the flower to search for pretty floral pictures I got all sorts of insane teen gunmen, digital tributes to victims, and soppy made-for-tv movies. This is a shame, since columbines are not just lovely, but hardy (all the way to the frigid depths of Zone 3) and easy to grow. Columbines are flowers of the genus Aquilegia which grow throughout the northern hemisphere. They hybridize prolifically, so it is hard to pin down the exact wild species. In addition to their hardiness they easily germinate from seeds.
Columbines (Aquilegias)
The flower’s common and scientific names are also weirdly at odds. Aquilegia is the Latin name for eagle. The flowers received this fearsome name because the long flower spurs were thought to resemble eagle’s claws. Columbine is Latin for dove—since it was thought the inverted flower looked like five doves nestled together. It is strange that gardeners use a (tainted) Latin name at the expense of a different yet equally euphonic Latin name. I think we should henceforth call columbines aquilegias and put the columbine name behind us. Indeed, forgetting the Columbine massacre itself might be for the best, since greater media attention may lead to copycat attacks. [I realize that I am now guilty of writing about Columbine too–so I earnestly entreat any teenagers who are somehow reading this blog post about flowers not to shoot up their high schools. Stay in school, kids, and grow up to write eclectic blogs about winsome spring flowers: that’ll really teach the bullies!]
With their elongated petal spurs and delicate shades of pink, blue, purple, and yellow, aquilegias are extremely pretty. Yet their prettiness belies their poisonous nature. Like many shade plants, aquilegias have poisonous seeds and roots. Indeed they are related to the infamous aconitums—which are also a part of the treacherous buttercup family. Hopefully other gardeners will follow my lead in calling columbines aquilegias—but more importantly, you should follow good example by growing them—they are really magical.
Plus hummingbirds (amazing photo by Ken Helal)
Before Thanksgiving, I posted a column about the confusing circumstances behind the names of turkeys. It turns out that the noble birds derive both their English and taxonomical names from being mistakenly identified as guinea fowl. What I failed to explain in that column was how guinea fowl came by their scientific name “Meleagrides” which in turn became the genus name for American turkeys (Meleagris).
So where did guinea fowls get their name? According to The Metamorphosis by Ovid, after Althaea, the Queen of Calydon, burned a magical log and thereby killed her son Meleager–an act which was bitter revenge for Mealeager killing another of her sons along with her brother in an intoxicated fight–she understandably became unhinged with grief (all of this is related in yesterday’s post if you are having trouble keeping up with the mayhem). Althaea then killed herself, leaving her daughters to cope with a complete family catastrophe. Their distraught lamentation was so absolute and cacophonous that Artemis pitied them and transformed them into guinea fowl–which became sacred to her. Of Meleager’s sisters, only Gorge and Deianara (who had their own sad destinies to pursue) were spared this fate.
Death of Meleager (Roman, 2nd century AD, marble)
So it turns out that turkeys are ultimately named after a heroic Greek spearman who was tragically destroyed by a bitter twist of fate after a drunken brawl (or by the wrath of Artemis, depending on how you look at mythological causality). The paths of fate are strange indeed.
Last year Ferrebeekeeper featured a two part article concerning turkey breeds which sketched the long agricultural history of the magnificent fowl. One thing that article failed to explain however, was how turkeys obtained their (wildly inappropriate) English name. As you can imagine, the birds are named after the Ottoman nation which bestrides Europe and Asia Minor in what was once the heart of the Byzantine empire. A trail of misidentification lies behind the name, which ultimately involves an entirely different genus of birds from Sub-Saharan Africa.
Chalchiuhtotolin, the Aztec Trickster Deity who manifested as a turkey
Turkeys were first domesticated by the ancient people of Meso-America in the distant past (most particularly by the Aztecs who called the birds by the elegant and onomatopoeiac name “huexoloti”). When Spaniards conquered the Aztec empire four hundred years ago, they brought turkeys back to Spain and selectively bred them to reflect Iberian tastes and preferences. The Spanish called turkeys “Indian fowl” as a result of Columbus’ mistaken belief that the Americas were somehow part of Asia and were close to India. This name became enshrined in the French word for turkeys “la dinde” (d’Inde meaning “from India”).
Helmeted Guineafowl (Numida meleagris)
The English saw these Spanish turkeys and mistakenly thought that they were domesticated guineafowl (Numida meleagris) which at the time were believed to come from Turkey (a major shipping nation with long ties to East African commerce). The name stuck and even became part of the scientific nomenclature for the genus–the genus name “Meleagris” comes from the species name of the helmeted guineafowl Numida meleagris. Later as the English explored Africa, the the guineafowl received the more appropriate English name which it now enjoys (insomuch as birds care what they are called). However the unfortunate turkey–one of the most North American of all animals–is foolishly named after an African bird once mistakenly thought to come from Asia minor.
Oh history, why can you never make any sense?
