Thursday 6 August 2009

Antirinum or is it Antirhinum or...

When I was very small Dad gave me a little patch of garden in which to grow plants. I recall that Virginia Stock was one of the plants that I grew from seed (and was in tears when my patch flooded and the little seedlings looked to be drowned). I also grew Radishes and Lettuces but the only other flowers I can recall having in my little patch were Snapdragons. (I would put Antirrhinum in brackets but I’m never sure how to spell it!!!)



I still have a few around the garden and they delight me just as much now as they did then.


 

9 comments:

  1. Are the ones you have now the descendants of the original?

    My Dictionary says...
    antirhinum as the spelling in case you need again.

    Super day weather-wise down here in the south east...
    Love Granny

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  2. Derfinitely antirrhinum - but Snap Dragon is so much nicer!

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  3. Absolutely one of my favourite flowers but I have had little success with them up here on Lewis.

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  4. To this day, I cannot walk by a snapdragon without making it "talk". It just cracks me up.

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  5. Have you ever heard of snapdragons being called "bunny mouths?" That's what my late mother-in-law used to call them. She loved gardening and had a way with plants.
    Canadian chickadee

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  6. I've never heard them called Bunny Mouths, Canadian Chickadee. I wonder by what other names they also go? I couldn't find any on the web but I did discover -
    •During the 1950's snapdragons were one of the top five cut flowers grown in North America
    •In Antirrhinum majus, "Anti" in Greek means "like," and "rhinos" means "snout."

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  7. No, Granny, the present ones are not descendants of the originals. In fact, I don't really know where the present ones came from. I haven't planted any so presumably they are the 'children' of plants grown by the previous owner of this house.

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  8. As a child I knew them as bunny rabbits.....my grandchildren still say that when talking about them.

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    Replies
    1. I suspect that the way local and traditional names get passed on is in families. Hopefully one day your grandchildren will tell their grandchildren that's what they're called.

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