Mythology and history of flowers "a". Flower named after the Greek goddess of the rainbow Plants named after the goddess

26.09.2018 16:52

Such fish were first discovered in the Atlantic. Previously, they were found only in the Indian Ocean. Information about this is distributed by Zookeys magazine.

American scientists from the University of California conducted research and noticed fish of colorful colors in the reefs of the uninhabited Sao Paulo archipelago off the coast of Brazil. Eyewitnesses said that they had never seen sea creatures of such beauty before. This underwater inhabitant was discovered at a depth of 120 meters in the “twilight zone” of coral reefs. Scientists named this fish in honor of the ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite Tosanoides Aphrodite. Its scales shimmer with variegated colors in the sun and it is impossible to take your eyes off of it.

According to researchers, fish living at such depths are often red in color, since the rays of the sun do not reach the underwater kingdom. Scientists have carried out a genetic examination of Tosanoides Aphrodite and said that this species has never before been found in the Atlantic. Tosanoides Obama, named after former US President Barack Obama, belongs to the same genus. This fish lives off the Hawaiian Islands and reaches a length of six centimeters. It was named after the president because Obama expanded a national park in Hawaii.

Alternative descriptions

Flower from a flower bed

. (killer whale) perennial herbaceous plant

Kilometer candy

Threads for knitting, embroidery

Opera by Italian composer Pietro Mascagni

The most rainbow flower

Tale of G. Hesse

Creamy toffee or “golden key”

Photo aperture

Iris

Flower, symbol of the Virgin Mary

Flower, symbol of France

Candy variety

Iris in the flowerbed

Lilac flower

In which flower is the rainbow hidden?

Flower, symbol of the Virgin Mary and her sorrow

Tennessee State Flower

A candy that likes to stick to your teeth

Iris

Candies "Golden Key"

Minor planet

Female name

Type of thread

garden flower

Opera by Italian composer P. Moscagni

Tomato variety

Suitable candy for tooth extraction

Essential oil plant (oregano)

Threads or flowers

Dark blue flower

bright flower

Candy "Kis-kis"

. "candy" flower

Iris in the flower garden

Iris in a different way

Flower and candy

Iris in the garden

blue flower

Both the flower and the candy

. "Kitty Kitty"

Large blue flower

Bright flower and candy

Candy "Kis-kis"

. "Golden Key"

Candy for teeth removal

Iris

Threads or, say, flowers

Toffee candy

Bright blue flower

Culinary “Golden Key”

Embroidery threads

In which flower is the rainbow hidden?

purple flower

Candy stuck to teeth

Candy "Kis-kis" and a flower in a flowerbed

Flowerbed flower

Irish flower

The flower is just candy

Flower with a candy name

Sabelnik among flowers

A variety of “stretchy” sweets

Flower, candy and embroidery thread

Flower or candy

Flowerbed flower with a candy name

From a type of garden flowers

Flower, candy or thread

Type of candy or thread

Flower or candy

Threads or candies

Flower or thread

flower plant

Ornamental plant

Flower from Van Gogh's painting

Spring Flower

Flower, threads, iris

Plant, threads

Flower in a flowerbed

Type of viscous candy

Flower, iris

Candy variety

herbaceous plant

Photo aperture

Iris

Opera Mascagni

In Greek mythology, the goddess of the rainbow, messenger of Zeus and Hera

perennial garden flower

. "Golden Key"

. "Kitty Kitty"

. "Kis-kis" (candy)

. "candy" flower

In which flower is the rainbow hidden?

Flowerbed iris

Candy "Kis-kis" and a flower in a flowerbed

Candy "Kis-kis"

Culinary "Golden Key"

M. ob. name plant Iris, iris, cockerel, songbird; biglamis, lesser white-knob; flavissima, wolf cucumber; furcata, kasar(t?)ka; germanica, scilla, braids, carp; pseudacorus, iris, tortilla, chican, cockerels, wild tulip? mistakenly ir, calamus: rutheniса, koshanik, field daisies? sibrisa, bells, chistyak, hare cucumbers, bear cucumbers, pikulnik, songbird, magpie flowers, chamomile. Eye rainbow, iris, rainbow captivity

The flower is just candy

Orca flower in a flower bed

Candy, flower and embroidery thread

Type of embroidery thread

Flower and name of toffee candy

What candies get your teeth stuck in?

What kind of candy sticks to your teeth?

What kind of candy gets stuck in your teeth?

Such fish were first discovered in the Atlantic. Previously, they were found only in the Indian Ocean. Information about this is distributed by Zookeys magazine.

Indeed, what do the names of plants really mean? Why are they named this way and not another? And where did their names come from anyway? These questions are by no means idle. After all, folk local names and strictly scientific Latin or Latinized ones, old ones, rooted in ancient times, and new ones assigned relatively recently - they all carry interesting information that allows us to better know the wonderful world of plants, learn how to wisely use and carefully protect the green cover planets.

The book is intended for the general reader.

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Rice. 29. Ancient Greek god of medicine Asclepius (Aesculapius).

The Olympian elite were usually accompanied by lower-ranking gods. Here were the Harites - three goddesses of beauty, grace, and joy. Here were the Moiras - the three goddesses of fate. There were muses here - nine patronesses of the sciences and arts. Numerous nymphs were a kind of intermediaries between higher powers and mere mortals. They lived everywhere: in lakes, rivers and streams - naiads; in the seas - Nereids; in the mountains - oreads; on forest trees - dryads. By the way, the nymphs were lucky with human memory. In the names of plants we often find their names: Nayas ( Najas), Nerina ( Nerine), Arethusa ( Aretusa), Phyllodotsa ( Phyllodoce), Calypso ( Calypso), Daphne ( Daphne), Akmena ( Acmene), Dryas ( Dryas). The first three naiads and the plants named after them are also aquatic or coastal.

The old women of Moira controlled the destinies of people. Clotho began to spin the thread of life, Lachesis determined and distributed what was destined for man, and finally, the sinister Atropos cut the thread of life. It is no coincidence that the botanists gave the plant to her Atropa- belladonna (belladonna) poisonous from roots to leaves.

But the Charites Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia served the ancient Greeks as the standard of female beauty and virtue. For botanists, to perpetuate these remarkable qualities, it turned out that one Aglaia was enough, after which a genus from the Meliaceae family, widespread in southeast Asia, Australia and the islands of Oceania, is named. The same thing happened with the muses. Of all their hosts, only Euterpe - the patroness of lyric poetry - is captured in the name of the palm tree Euterpe, growing in tropical America.

The Three Gorgons, daughters of the sea god, were extremely ugly. With wings on their backs, and with a shock of poisonous snakes instead of hair on their heads, they brought chilling horror to all mortals, and as soon as they looked at them, all living things turned to stone. An aquatic plant of our Far East is named after one of these terrible sisters - Euryale. Euryale leaves (Fig. 30), floating on the surface of the water like water lily leaves, bristle on all sides with large sharp thorns. Only flowers are free from thorns. The thorns, of course, are not snakes, but nevertheless they give reason to consider Euryale to be terrifying ( Euryale ferox). Another Gorgon is reflected in the name of a shrub from the buckwheat family: this is calligonum (or juzgun) - the head of Medusa ( Calligonum caput medusae). Its fruits have numerous thin outgrowths, vaguely reminiscent of snake hair, and together they form an openwork ball, easily transported from place to place (Fig. 31). It was not at all easy for Perseus to defeat the Gorgon Medusa and cut off her snake-haired head. The name of the famous mythical hero is the famous fruit plant of the tropics, avocado ( Persea americana).

In general, botanical nomenclature includes a whole string of ancient Greek heroes. Together with Perseus, the invincible Achilles (gen. Achillea- yarrow from the Asteraceae family). This is the strong man Hercules (b. Heracleum) - hogweed from the Umbrella family, one of the most powerful representatives of herbaceous flora. This is the cunning Odysseus (tropical cereal Odysseus - Odyssea). The listed plants did not get their names by chance. Thus, the centaur Chiron, who taught young Achilles, gave him lessons in healing and, in particular, introduced him to yarrow, which was considered the best remedy for treating wounds. The memory of the sage Chiron himself is kept by a relative of our gentians, Chironia ( Hiromia), living in the tropics of Africa.

The botanical nomenclature did not bypass other, albeit not so famous, mortals, who in one way or another linked their fate with the gods. The name of Orchis, the son of the satyr Patella and the nymph Ascolasia, now appears in the popular name orchid. Hyacinth (Hyacinth), heir to the Spartan king Amycles, was the favorite of Apollo and the god of the winds Boreas. When Apollo taught him to throw a discus, the jealous Boreas directed the discus thrown by the god at the young man's head. From the blood of the deceased, Apollo created a beautiful flower in memory of him. Something similar happened to Krok, who competed in discus throwing with Hermes. Killed by a launched disk, he, too, was turned by the gods into a flower - a crocus ( Crocus) or saffron. Finally, there is Narcissus, the narcissistic youth described by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Looking into the water, he fell madly in love with his own reflection, froze by the stream and died, intoxicated by his beauty. By the way, the name is Narcissus ( Narkissos) is not quite Greek. It is related to the Persian nargis - to stiffen, to freeze. The well-known word “anesthesia” also comes from it.

It must be said that examples of the transformation of mythical characters into trees and grass are found quite often in the beliefs of the ancient Greeks. Everyone knows the myth about Phaeton, the son of the sun god Helios. For just one day, he begged his father for his sun chariot, which every day makes the traditional journey across the sky from east to west. The inexperienced driver could not cope with the team. The horses carried the chariot towards the Earth, threatening to incinerate all living things on it. Then Zeus struck Phaeton with lightning. He fell like a flaming torch into the Eridanus River. Phaethon's sisters - the Heliades - mourned their brother so inconsolably that they turned into poplars. The tears of the Heliades froze on the ground like drops of amber. The amazing insight of the ancient myth-makers: transparent amber is really of plant origin, although it has nothing to do with poplars.

There is a story about how the god of forests and groves Pan was inflamed with love for the nymph Syringa. Fleeing from his persecution, the nymph took refuge in the river, turning into reeds. But even here Pan found it, cut off the flexible stem and made a pipe from it. And the pipe sang in the gentle voice of Syringa, delighting the ears of God. Many images of Pan have a constant detail - a reed pipe. However, the nymph herself is not forgotten. A very popular plant, lilac, bears her name ( Syringa).

A similar motif sounds in the myth of the nymph Daphne. She avoided Apollo's advances in every possible way, and the gods, at her request, turned Daphne into a laurel. Let us remember once again that the laurel is a tree dedicated to Apollo. Botanists know another daphne - usually a low deciduous or evergreen shrub with few branches from the wolf family. In our Central Russian forests, for example, there is a flower that blooms in early spring with pink fragrant flowers. Daphne megereum, otherwise called wolf's bast or wolf's bast. By the way, Syringa and Daphne are not alone. The gods turned the beautiful Myrrh (Smyrna) into a myrrh tree ( Commiphora), giving a fragrant resin - myrrh.

It is not for nothing that the name of the priestess of Agave is given to a well-known Central American plant from the amaryllis family. This is an echo of a mythical tragedy. The obstinate priestess refused to believe in the divinity of Dionysus, and the angry god sent madness upon her. At a festival dedicated to the god of wine, in a fit of rage, she tore her own son to pieces. Agave in Central America is a source of sweet juice called aqua miel - honey water. It is collected by cutting off the stem at the beginning of flowering, and the juice accumulates in the center of the rosette of leaves. During the season, one agave can produce up to a thousand liters of sweet juice. It is fermented to produce the heady drink pulque. And the fact that alcohol causes “voluntary madness” was known back in the old days.

Among the ancient Romans, the host of gods was a kind of reflection of the Olympic oligarchy of the ancient Greeks. Let's say that Jupiter corresponded to Zeus, Juno to Hera, Venus to Aphrodite, Mercury to Hermes, Diana to Artemis, Mars to Ares, Pluto to Hades, Neptune to Poseidon. And some of the plant names are dedicated specifically to the ancient Roman gods. Here are some of them. For example, Lychnis flos jovis- dawn - flower of Jupiter; Coix lacrima jobi- coix tear of Jupiter. Few people know the last plant. This is a tropical cereal whose grains are pearlescent, white or brownish in shape and really look like a drop. In tropical countries, they are used to make elegant necklaces. Genus Juno ( Juno) from the iris family (irisaceae) is named after the wife of Jupiter. Orchids dedicated to Venus have already been mentioned. A very famous lily is saranka, royal curls, or martagon ( Lilium martagon), in its name bears the name of Mars. There is a tropical genus Neptunia in the legume family. Legumes are usually land plants. Neptunia, corresponding to the element of the god of the seas, is an aquatic plant. Particularly interesting Neptunia oleracea, whose leaves float on the surface of the water and, like mimosa leaves, have a bashful hypersensitivity to touch.

The Christian religion, in comparison with the ancient Greek and Roman beliefs, was almost not reflected in the scientific names of plants. This is apparently explained by the fact that taxonomists to a certain extent feared the discontent of the church, which considered the “personification” of flora an echo of the paganism it hated. It is believed, however, that the name of Veronica, known to many plants ( Veronica) given in honor of Saint Veronica. Another example is the thorny tree from the buckthorn family. In Latin it is called Paliurus spina - Christi, which literally means thorn, edge, spine of Christ. Botanist Miller gave the tree this name due to its association with the crown of thorns. A similar association, but only associated with the shape of the flower, reminiscent of a crown of thorns with its numerous thin petal-like outgrowths, prompted Linnaeus to name the genus of tropical lianas passionflower, or passionflower ( Passiflora). Popular nicknames of this kind are somewhat more numerous: for example, the tree of Judas, on which, according to biblical texts, Judas, who betrayed Christ, hanged himself. Two trees bear this name: legume Cercis siliquastrum, growing in the Mediterranean, and our aspen. The basis for this was the property of their leaves to tremble as if from fear at the slightest breath of wind.

In legends, myths, traditions that go back to the darkness of centuries or that arose relatively recently, various plants are very often mentioned. Let's give a few more examples.

In the practice of indoor floriculture, a liana with dark green split leaves and numerous aerial roots hanging down - monstera ( Monstera). This is a genus from the family Araceae, numbering about 50 species, common in the tropics of America. The name of the vine has a common root with the French monster - freak, monster. It would seem that at first glance there is nothing ugly or monstrous about the plant in question. However, the German botanist of the last century, Schott, the “godfather” of monstera, had sufficient grounds for choosing this name. The fact is that during the so-called Paraguayan War (1864–1870), the most incredible news came from a distant South American country to European newspapers. Thus, it was reported that in the Paraguayan province of Chaco, under a certain tree, corpses and human skeletons were often found wrapped in huge leaves, which were believed to have strangled their victims. Such newspaper sensations, in fact, were one of the last echoes of pagan legends about cannibal plants. The famous English writer H. Wells also paid tribute to plant vampires in his story “The Strange Orchid.”

Wells's story does not pretend to be authentic; it is a typical fantasy. But what lies behind the amazing information about the monster that was presented as truth? In E. Menninger’s book “Bizarre Trees” we find the following explanation: “Blossfeld, who lived for some time in Mato Grosso, specifically began to investigate these stories. He discovered that it was about Philodendron bipinnatifidum, the leaves of which actually reach a length of a meter or more. Rumor has it that people were attracted to the tree by the strong scent of its flowers; this smell stunned them like a drug, after which the leaves wrapped themselves around the unconscious victim and sucked out his blood. The flowers really smell very strongly, but people were attracted to this tree in the sun-scorched Chaco desert, where only thorns grow, by its shadow and the sweet pulp of its fruits, edible, like the fruits of its related monstera ( Monstera deliciosa). However, neither the flowers nor the fruits contain any poison or narcotic substances. The corpses underneath belonged to wounded or dying of thirst people who were hiding in the shade of a tree. The leaves, always falling to the ground, did indeed close over them, but not at all in order to suck their blood. According to Blossfeld, this legend still circulates in Brazil - it is too fascinating for the newspapers to give it up so easily.”

Dragon trees ( Dracaena draco) The Canary Islands are directly related to the legendary dragons of all nations. Their famous scarlet "dragon's blood" resin has been used since time immemorial in religious rites, in particular for embalming mummies. Dracaenas reach very impressive sizes and advanced age. For example, a specimen of a tree was described that had a circumference of 24 meters. The maximum age of such giants is estimated at approximately six thousand years. Interestingly, only in old age are dracaenas capable of secreting “dragon blood”.

The gum tree, a relative of the Canarian dragon tree, also cries bloody tears from the island of Socotra, located off the opposite coast of Africa, in the Indian Ocean. According to an ancient Indian belief, which Menninger cites in his book, “dragons constantly fought with elephants. They had a passion for elephant blood. The dragon wrapped itself around the elephant's trunk and bit him behind the ear, and then drank all his blood in one gulp. But one day a dying elephant fell on the dragon and crushed it. The blood of a dragon, mixed with the blood of an elephant, was called cinnabar, and then the red earth, which contained red sulfurous mercury, and, finally, the resin of the dragon tree. This legend explains why the resin is called “dragon’s blood”, and the name given to it by the Socotrians is “the blood of two brothers.” According to Indian religious beliefs, the elephant and the dragon are close relatives.” The draconian nature is also contained in the scientific name of the genus: the Greek word drakeia means dragon (although female).

And among the peoples of the East we will find many plants dedicated to various gods. Let's say the Indian Krishna has a “personal” ficus Ficus krishnae, the amazing leaves of which are twisted in a cone shape and fused along the edges, forming something like a large glass. According to legend, Krishna himself gave them this form in order to use them during feasts. Of course, it is difficult to compare with this exotic ficus the mantle - a low herbaceous plant from the Rosaceae family, which can be found along roads, in short-grass meadows, on forest edges and clearings in our central zone all summer until late autumn. In the mornings and at dusk, the surface of its leaves is usually covered with diamond drops of dew, which also accumulate in the recess of a kind of funnel, near the attachment of the petiole. Medieval alchemists attributed miraculous powers to this moisture, collected it and used it in their experiments. Similar ideas are still heard today in its scientific name. Alchemilla, which, like the word “alchemy,” originated from the Arabic alkemeluch.

Among the Russian names related to the magical and fairy-tale area, perhaps two main groups can be distinguished, although the boundaries between them will not be particularly clear. The first of them is associated with witchcraft, witchcraft, and divination; the second - with various kinds of beliefs, signs, symbols.

Healers who treated with herbs or “whispering on herbs”, the so-called zeleiniki, were not officially favored in Rus' in the old days. “Domostroy,” for example, allowed the possibility of “healing” only “by God’s mercy, with tears, with prayer, with fasting, with alms to the poor, and with true repentance.” Those who recognize “stargazing, almanacs, sorcerers... and other demonic machinations, or who feed with sorcery, potions, rooting, and herbs for death or indulgence, are truly doing ungodly things.”

It turns out that resorting to medicinal herbs was often equated with witchcraft and, therefore, required the most merciless condemnation. By the way, you can make a long list of plants that were used to “heal” against hexes, the evil eye, damage, dryness and the like, in a word, against “diseases” one way or another associated with evil spirits. This is how love is characterized in one of the books of the 18th century: “This passion is called dryness by the common people, and if there is someone who falls in love with her, but she is not inclined towards him, then they say that she brought dryness to him, and they understand this: it’s not for nothing , that is, as if the devil was involved here.”

The belief in the slander associated with witchcraft plants was so great that, for example, the staff of bed attendants, okolniks, craftswomen, laundresses, etc., who served the king and queen, swore a public oath to protect the health of the reigning family, “not to do anything bad, and , and don’t put the roots of Likhov in anything or anywhere, and protect them tightly from everything like that.”

In particular, it is known that a case was brought against one of the craftswomen of the Tsarina’s gold-embroidery workshops. She brought with her and accidentally dropped the root of a plant called “reversible”. Suspecting her of dark intentions, the king ordered the craftswoman to be tortured on the rack and with fire. The oathbreaker admitted under torture that the root was given to her by a sorceress in order to “convert” (that is, make her fall in love again) “the evil husband” who had left for another. To do this, it was necessary to “put the root on the mirror glass and in that looker’s mirror.” The craftswoman got off quite lightly at that time: she and her husband (after all, he had to return!) were sent to Kazan “in disgrace.” Others suspected of witchcraft directed against the royal family often ended their lives with execution, as happened, for example, with one sorceress, who was suspected of trying to put the evil eye on the queen, while her actual “specialization” was slander on wine, vinegar and garlic against heart disease and fever. Note that even now garlic preparations, including alcoholic ones, are recommended for atherosclerosis and hypertension. Its phytoncidal properties help fight some infectious diseases. So much for the “herbal slander”!

In most cases, it is not possible to identify the names of all kinds of witchcraft herbs, even if they are found in written documents or oral traditions, and botanists usually have no desire to do so. Descriptions of such herbs, as a rule, were not given or deliberately distorted in order to complicate their search. Now try to guess what kind of “reversible” root this is!

When getting acquainted with miraculous plants, the first thing that catches your eye is the abundance of love potions, love potions, hex decoctions, and other things. Some of their ingredients are still known. For example, they included lovage ( Levisticum officinale) is an aromatic perennial plant from the Apiaceae family. It is sometimes bred even now in the southern regions of our country, but, of course, not as a love remedy, but as a medicine. In ancient herbal books, under the names lyubnik, lyub-grass and just lyub, the common meadow and forest plant gravilat ( Geum). The ability to bewitch is attributed to its seeds, or more precisely, its fruits. The reason for this, it seems, should be sought precisely in their structure. They are equipped with sharp hooks that cling to anything, and in a certain sense they act like another remedy - slander soap. Fortune tellers gave it to abandoned wives for washing: “as soon as the soap sticks to the face, just as quickly the husband falls in love with his wife.” By the way, the tenacity of the fruit gave the ancient Greeks reason to ironically call the bedstraw philanthropos, that is, loving people. If we consider this characteristic as the main one - “stickiness”, then quite a lot of different plants could be classified as love or bewitching agents: string, burdock, cocklebur, linnaea and others.

The ancient Slavic holiday of Ivan Kupala in honor of the god of fruits was celebrated in the old days on June 23. People lit fires, staged games and dances around them, jumped over the fire, loudly calling out the name Kupala in order to appease God, on whom the fertility of the coming autumn depended. And on the eve of the holiday, at night, especially lucky people would see a flickering light in the forest: it was a fern blooming. “The small flower bud turns red and moves as if alive. Indeed, wonderful! It moves and gets bigger and bigger and turns red like a hot coal. A star flashed, something quietly crackled, and the flower unfolded before his eyes, like a flame, illuminating others around it,” this is how N.V. Gogol described the impressions of Petrus Bezrodny, the hero of the famous story “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala.”

The memory of this wonderful night and this pagan holiday was gradually erased. But a peculiar echo of them, as one might assume, is the name of the swimsuit - one of the popular meadow and forest Central Russian plants. This, of course, is not a fern, but the bright yellow spherical flowers of the swimsuit, just like in Gogol’s story, sparkle with small lights in the darkness of the forest. Residents of other countries also saw something mysterious and fabulous in the swimsuit. It is believed that its Latin name Trollius goes back to the German Trollblume - troll flower. And trolls, as you know, are mythical heroes of Scandinavian and German folklore. True, another version of the origin of this word is completely prosaic: it is derived from the Latin trulleus, meaning a round vessel, based on the spherical shape of the flower.

There are quite a few names of herbs that help to find hidden treasures, break chains and locks, and exorcise evil spirits. Isn't it true that thistle - "scaring of devils" - has a funny name? We have become accustomed to it, and the initial meaning invested in it seems to be erased. But there was certainly something behind this! And so the primary sources are found by chance. A researcher of the Novgorod province A. Shustikov wrote at the end of the last century: “Thistle is used to drive out demons, and generally evil spirits from the house.” And again: “During a seizure, a bedridden patient is drawn in a circle and beaten mercilessly with thistle grass.” The remedy, it must be frankly admitted, is effective: after all, the thistle is quite thorny, and, of course, even a very sick person will try to get up, just to stop the merciless beating.

Grasshopper and grasshopper are quite suitable for company with thistles. They, as it is said in the book with the funny title “Abevega of Russian Superstitions,” published in the 18th century, “have a special power in witchcraft and without them no treasure can be removed.” On its pages you will also find the tear-grass, indispensable in many Russian fairy tales, with the help of which they freed heroes chained in chains. “If someone applies this grass to a locked lock, then it will immediately unlock itself without a key, and if a horse walking across a field with iron fetters finds this grass, then they will immediately fall away.”

The ancient folk nickname for the weeping grass has still been preserved ( Lythrum salicaria) is a perennial plant with an elongated inflorescence of purple or slightly lilac flowers, opening the color insert in our book. The origin of this name is easily explained. In the integumentary tissues of the leaves of the weeping grass there are special organs - hydathodes, through which it gets rid of excess moisture. Drops of water flow down from the leaves, the plant “cries”. This process is absolutely necessary for him, given that weeping grass most often lives in excessively moist places: in flooded meadows, along the banks of reservoirs. The same “Abewega” gives a slightly different explanation: “Weeping grass makes unclean spirits cry. When someone has this herb with him, then all hostile spirits will submit to it. She alone is able to drive out the brownie grandfathers, kikimors and others, and open an attack on the sworn treasure, which is guarded by unclean spirits.” It turns out that what miraculous plants surround us!

In the old days, the symbolism of flowers meant a lot. Let's see how an unknown author wrote about this in the book “The Language of Flowers,” published in St. Petersburg in 1849:

According to tastes, faces and years I have flowers in my garden: I give lily to innocence, Sleepy poppy to sugary husbands. Fragrant field lily of the valley To the friends of the humble poor Liza; Narcissus is unhappy and pale to handsome men who are busy with themselves. Hiding in the shadows, a violet calls to itself an unknown talent; The lover will meet the lovely myrtle: The arrogance of the lordly inflated prince. To the flatterers, servants of the court I carry a sunflower with a bow; I go to the temporary worker with a peony, Which was in bloom yesterday. I greet evil messengers and talkers with a bell; In the shadows I hide from view For my dear one a rose without thorns.

Here, in poetic form, the “language of flowers” is described, or, as they also said, their emblematic meaning: white lily - purity; poppy - drowsiness, phlegmatic; narcissist - selfishness; violet - shyness; myrtle - mutual love: sunflower - intrigue, gossip, flattery; bell - talkativeness; scarlet rose - tenderness. Of all this very rich “language”, perhaps only the name of the tender forget-me-not, symbolizing fidelity, has entered our everyday life and has been preserved to this day.

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Aconite (Greek akoniton, Latin aconitum) is one of the most poisonous flowering plants. Russian folk names for some types of this flower are “fighter-root”, “wolf root”, “wolf-killer”, “king-grass”, “black root”, “goat death”, “lumbago-grass”, etc. The flower is poisonous from root to pollen. In ancient times, the Greeks and Chinese made arrow poison from it. The popular names of the plant “wolfkiller” and “wolfsbane” are explained by the fact that the wrestler was previously used to bait wolves - a decoction of the root was used to treat the bait. In Nepal, they also poisoned bait for large predators and drinking water during an enemy attack.

The etymology of the name is unclear, some associate this flower with the ancient Greek city of Akone, in the vicinity of which aconites grew in abundance, others derive its name from the Greek. Aconae - “rock, cliff” or Acontion - “arrows”. The toxicity of the plant is caused by the content of alkaloids in it, which, acting on the central nervous system, cause paralysis of the respiratory center.

To collect the divine cactus Peyote, which did not grow in their country, the Huichols made a special trip to Virakuta once a year, furnishing their enterprise with special rituals. The Indians of this tribe believe that their ancestors came out of this desert and imagine it as a kind of paradise, a sacred space, essentially belonging to the other world. In fact, this physical journey is a reflection of the spiritual penetration into the spirit world that the Huichols accessed through peyote rituals.