The particular uses to which certain plants have been applied have
originated their names: the horse-bean, from being grown as a food for
horses; and the horse-chestnut, because used in Turkey for horses that
are broken or touched in the wind. Parkinson, too, adds how, "horse-
chestnuts are given in the East, and so through all Turkey, unto horses to
cure them of the cough, shortness of wind, and such other diseases." The
germander is known as horse-chere, from its growing after horse-
droppings; and the horse-bane, because supposed in Sweden to cause a
kind of palsy in horses--an effect which has been ascribed by Linnaeus
not so much to the noxious qualities of the plant itself, as to an insect
(Curculio paraplecticus) that breeds in its stem.
The dog has suggested sundry plant names, this prefix frequently
suggesting the idea of worthlessness, as in the case of the dog-violet,
which lacks the sweet fragrance of the true violet, and the dog-parsley,
which, whilst resembling the true plant of this name, is poisonous and
worthless. In like manner there is the dog-elder, dog's-mercury, dog's-
chamomile, and the dog-rose, each a spurious form of a plant quite
distinct; while on the other hand we have the dog's-tooth grass, from the
sharp-pointed shoots of its underground stem, and the dog-grass
(Triticum caninu), because given to dogs as an aperient. The cat has
come in for its due share of plant names, as for instance the sun-spurge,
which has been nicknamed cat's-milk, from its milky juice oozing in
drops, as milk from the small teats of a cat; and the blossoms of the talix,
designated cats-and-kittens, or kittings, probably in allusion to their soft,
fur-like appearance. Further names are, cat's-faces (Viola tricolor), cat's-
eyes (Veronica chamcaedrys), cat's-tail, the catkin of the hazel or willow,
and cat's-ear (Hypochaeris maculata).
The bear is another common prefix. Thus there is the bear's-foot, from
its digital leaf, the bear-berry, or bear's-bilberry, from its fruit being a
favourite food of bears, and the bear's-garlick. There is the bear's-breech,
from its roughness, a name transferred by some mistake from the
Acanthus to the cow-parsnip, and the bear's-wort, which it has been
suggested "is rather to be derived from its use in uterine complaints than
from the animal."
Among names in which the word cow figures may be mentioned the
cow-bane, water-hemlock, from its supposed baneful effects upon cows,
because, writes Withering, "early in the spring, when it grows in the
water, cows often eat it, and are killed by it." Cockayne would derive
cowslip from cu, cow, and slyppe, lip, and cow-wheat is so nicknamed
from its seed resembling wheat, but being worthless as food for man.
The flowers of the Arum maculatum are "bulls and cows;" and in
Yorkshire the fruit of Crataegus oxyacantha is bull-horns;--an old name
for the horse-leek being bullock's-eye.
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