LOVE IS ALL AROUND
A GOOD many plants have romantic common names. Varieties include bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis), love grass (Clytostoma callistigioides) and love-in-idleness (Viola tricolor), better known as heartsease, which is almost as good.
There’s passionflower (Passiflora caerulea), a fast, clingy beauty, and don’t forget lad’s love (Artemisia absinthium), which is a vital ingredient of absinthe liqueur.
You might settle for seeds of annual love-in-a-puff if you can overlook the less romantic Latin name, Cardiospermum halicacabum. Or there are love apples, which won an undeserved reputation as aphrodisiacs due to a slight error in translation centuries ago – nowadays we know them better as tomatoes.
One or two flowers have well-known romantic meanings. Rose stands for love – that’s why it’s the traditional Valentine’s Day flower – and forgetme-not means just that.
Coreopsis means love at first sight, gorse means enduring affection, while pansy means “you occupy my thoughts constantly”.
Tulips signify hopeless love if yellow, and are a declaration of love if red.
And don’t forget celandine, which signifies joys to come.