The Devil You Say!

Somewhere I saw a flower or pod plant offered that was named Two Horned Devil in a Bush.

I assume it is related to the other day's post about Nigella.  I lost track of the Two Horn one, but in trying to find it again I found so many devil plants I became interested and wondered if it was one of the most common names.



You won't find seed catalogs offering them under the old names, or offering them under new names for that matter, as the plants often were annoying or poisonous. As a died in the wool romantic, a Sabine Baring-Gould groupie even,  I feel the old names have the weight and magic of human history.  Not the big history we are asked to memorize in schools, but the more intensely personal history of how we relate to the earth.  We would do better to teach more of the latter.


The upshot of all this is I went on a search for plants with devil in the name... especially ones for the cottage garden.  The first book that was nice I found was Plant Lore, Legend and Lyrics, a book that could keep you happily reading a little every day for quite awhile.  You can download it in many formats, from text to ePub, or read it online.  A list of "devil plants" follows this chapter.

So what is Certagon?  I found a plant called chasse-diable which is a teasel.  See below...which is a Google translated page from an interesting small French site!

The following is from  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 - Richard Chandler Alexander Prior - 1870

Add caption