On the popular names of British plants, being an explanation of the origin and meaning of the names of our indigenous and most commonly cultivated species / by R. C. A. Prior.

  • Prior, R. C. Alexander (Richard Chandler Alexander), 1809-1902.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the popular names of British plants, being an explanation of the origin and meaning of the names of our indigenous and most commonly cultivated species / by R. C. A. Prior. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    much in it that is peculiar, and, apparently, continued from the Anglo-Saxon period ; and, remarkably enough, in a district where Welsh was more or less spoken till after the Conquest, much of the Wessex pronunciation is still to he heard in the mouths of the peasantry, as in the days when its dialect was the court language. In Suffolk, too, there has been a great number of valuable old names pre- served, and carefully recorded in the Yocabularies of Moore and Formby. Those of the commonest plants are the most variable, as the rarer ones have attracted too little of popular notice to have any but such as are given in books. It seems desirable that these old names should be preserved, but there is already much greater difficulty in obtaining a correct list of those of any particular district, and the meaning of them, than there was a generation ago, from the dying out of the race of herb-doctors, and of the simplers, generally females, who used to collect for them. It is doubtful, indeed, whether any one of this class could now be found, who has learnt them from tradition, and independently of modern books. One of the last was some seventy or eighty years ago living at Market Lavington in Wiltshire, a genuine old-fashioned specimen of his class, a Dr. Batter. He was understood to have had a regular medical education, probably as an apothecary, and cer- tainly enjoyed a very high reputation. He has been described to me by a physician who knew him well, the late Dr. Sainsbury, sen., of Corsham, as a very unpretend- ing man, and a successful practitioner, and visited and consulted from all parts of the county. He had been