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Originally Posted by Sheryl LaBouchardiere lol, really? I hadn't heard that one. 
I wonder if theres a book somewhere that delves into the origins of these terms? |
Not quite what you had in mind but I have an old Readers Digest book called Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of Great Britain and it has all sorts of interesting little snippets about the plants ... for example Ragged robin was also called batchelor's buttons (several other plants were given this name as well) as apparently 16th century West county girls used to pick the flowers, several at a time, and give each the name of a local boy. Whichever flower opened first was said to identify either the boy the girl should marry, or the one who wanted to marry her. It has also been called thunder flower (another name shared with other flowers) because children believed that if they picked the flowers thunder and lightening would occur.
Common Mallow was sometimes called billy buttons, pancake plant or cheese flower and in medieval times was used as an anti-aphrodisiac!
I like the old names too.