prunella

[prettygoodword]

prunella - n., a type of lightweight worsted twill fabric; any of several species of Eurasian perennial plants with purple or white flowers also known as self-heal or healall, frequently used as an herbal medicine; any of a handful of species of Eurasian passerine birds better known as accentors and dunnocks.


The first of these comes from French prunelle, sloe, from Old French, diminutive of prune, prune, for reasons that are obscure to me, though one dictionary suggests it's because it's often dyed the color of prunes. The plant is directly from Latin prunella, diminutive of prunus, purple, because of its flowers. For the birds, I can't find why the genus is named Prunella, since they're not at all purple -- indeed, dunnock means "little brown bird."

---L.

Comments

sloes!!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about sloes for the past two days. Wanted to make sloe gin, but there are no sloes around where I live, so am settling for wild grape gin. But in the meantime, discovered that sloe=blackthorn=prunus spinosa, and that it is, in fact, naturalized in my area (just I haven't seen any), and that the plant I bought and stuck in my garden, that I thought excitedly might be a blackthorn, is in fact a beach plum=prunus maritima, whose fruit is similar.

I thought Prunella was only a name of one of Cinderella's step-sisters. Shows you what I know...

heal-all is a lovely herb; I saw some growing just this morning.

Re: sloes!!

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Yay heal-all!

---L.