#Polish wildflower names tend to be kinda cute too actually

[errantknightess]

Okay but as a non-native English speaker, I am constantly delighted by some of the older common folk names for flowers and plants in this language. They sound like something straight out of a fantasy novel or a fairytale, and I just love the ring they have - kinda cute, kinda mysterious, kinda ridiculous. I mean, just look at these:

arum (adder’s root, snakeshead, cuckoo-pint, wake robin, friar’s cowl) barrenwort (bishop’s hat, fairy wings, horny goat weed) bittersweet (bitter nightshade, felonwood, poisonberry, snakeberry) chasteberry (monk’s pepper) cowslip (key of heaven, fairy cups, petty mulleins, crewel, buckles, palsywort, plumrocks, tittypines) dungwort (stinking hellebore, bear’s foot) earth smoke elecampane (horse-heal, alanroot, elfwort, elfdock) feverfew (featherfew, bachelor’s buttons) field bindweed (withy wind, creeping jenny, possession vine) field horsetail gold-dust (golden alyssum, golden-tuft madwort, rock madwort) hawthorn (quickthorn, whitethorn, motherdie) houndstooth maidenhair fern mouse-ear hawkweed mugwort (common wormwood, felon herb, sailor’s tobacco, naughty man) orpine (livelong, frog’s-stomach, harping Johnny, witch’s moneybags) red valerian (kiss-me-quick, fox’s brush, devil’s beard) scarlet pimpernel (poor man’s weather-glass, shepherd’s clock) spiny restharrow STINKING GOOSEFOOT wild pansy (heart's ease, tickle-my-fancy, come-and-cuddle-me) yarrow (bloodwort, sneezeweed, soldier’s woundwort, allheal)

also, the sheer number of various names referring to naked people in one way or another is just glorious