The common names we give to plants often say less about science and more about superstition. Take fleabane. Its title comes from the old belief that dried stems would drive away fleas. Toothwort was thought to cure toothache, not through any chemical virtue, but because its flowers looked rather like teeth.
The Autumn-flowering Cyclamen carries a name that tells a different story. Known as sowbread or swinebread, its turnip-like corms were said to be eaten by pigs in Italy, despite their acrid taste. That same bitterness led to the plant being prized for medicine long ago. Across the Mediterranean Basin, this porcine connection lingers in the local names itself: panis porcinus in Medieval Latin, Saubrot in German, pain de pourceau in French, pan porcino in Italian, varkensbrood in Dutch1Mabey, Richard. “Flora Britannica”. Reed International Books Ltd. 1996. ISBN 1 85619 377 2.. One claim even insisted that sowbread, beaten into cakes and eaten, could serve as “good amorous medicine to make one in love.”2The Dark Secrets of Flower Power. Aberdeen Evening Express – Saturday 14 January 1978.
These Cyclamen colour the grounds of Hutton Hall, the former home of Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease. In 1876 he commissioned a 270-foot corridor crowned with glass, with ranges of glasshouses stretching from its sides. On 4 January 1902, The Gardening World reported on his display of Cyclamen3YORKSHIRE GARDENS TRUST. NYMNPA Historic Designed Landscapes Project Hutton Hall park and garden. Report by Louise Wickham [October 2018] . The question remains: are today’s wild flowers the descendants of those that slipped the confines of Pease’s grand greenhouse?
- 1Mabey, Richard. “Flora Britannica”. Reed International Books Ltd. 1996. ISBN 1 85619 377 2.
- 2The Dark Secrets of Flower Power. Aberdeen Evening Express – Saturday 14 January 1978.
- 3YORKSHIRE GARDENS TRUST. NYMNPA Historic Designed Landscapes Project Hutton Hall park and garden. Report by Louise Wickham [October 2018]
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