A rose by any other name...

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," declares Shakespeare's Juliet. I suppose the concept expressed here is that the names of most objects in all languages are arbitrary. A rose is still a rose, whether it is named in English (rose), Spanish (rosa), Portuguese (rosa), or French (rose), all with different pronunciations.

I've had plants on the brain recently because it is finally springtime in my part of the world. I find myself wanting to do nothing but think and plan for a garden full of gorgeous flora. Because I live in a bilingual community, plants are often identified egually by their common English or Spanish names. Could some of my garden plants have Spanish names that are more evocative or descriptive than their English names? 

Take the humble snapdragon. I planted one large snapdragon in a pot in the courtyard last fall. It survived through the winter, putting on new yellow blooms as the frost date passed. Its name in Spanish is perritos, which translates into English as 'puppies.' A new name gives me a new way to look at the snapdragon. Yes, with a little imagination, those snapdragon blooms could be a litter of newborn puppies!

One of my favorite plants is sedum, which I grow pots. What a tough little plant. It never complains about the weather or my erratic watering schedule. And even though sedum waits until fall to bloom, the show of pink color it puts on is well worth the wait. The Spanish name for sedum is hierba callera. Calling it a hierba (herb) seems to give sedum some status in the plant world. The callera (from callo-callus) must come from the appearance of sedum as it springs to life each March.

And then there is the honeysuckle vine. Its blossoms do smell as sweet as honey, but the Spanish name, madreselva, (mother of the jungle), reminds me that honeysuckle will run rampant and take over anything in sight.

A favorite desert plant is the Ice Plant. It is a common ground cover with fleshy stems that bloom in several colors. Google Translate says the translation is a boring planta de hielo, but in El Paso, Texas, I more often hear it referred to in Spanish as dedo (finger), which I find to be much more picturesque. And since the ice plant comes in different size 'fingers,' there is the large dedo del rey (king's finger) and the smaller dedo del niño (child's finger). I much prefer the Spanish translation.

Here are a few other Spanish plant names that for me add interest to common plants. Caladiums, with their colorful leaves, are known as papagayos (parrots); canna lilies with their large blooms are called banderas (flags); sunflowers are girasoles (turn towards the sun); chinaberry trees are named by their scent, lilas (lilac). The tough desert willow tree is the acuahuitl, a little difficult to pronounce, but evocative of ancient Aztec civilizations.

And there are two more plants (as yet unknown to me) with fascinating names that I found in my research. A plant in English called 'Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow"\ in Spanish is galán de noche (young man out on the town), and the English 'goldfields' is rendered in Spanish by 'Si me quieres, no me quieres' (You love me, you love me not). 

Naming plants in different languages of course doesn't change the essence of the plant, but naming choices may encourage us to see our common plants in a new light. Let's get to planting!