Word of the day: flea-bane

Elaine and I went on a walk not long ago, following the paths through a ten-acre wildflower-covered prairie (“Savanna,” someone corrected) on the property of friends who live out in the country. Way out in the country. Our guide would pause every so often to point to and talk about a plant or tree or some change in the natural world. Many of the people on this walk are as knowledgeable as our guide is: they know the Latin and common names of countless species. I know a small number of flowers, mostly from literature — gentians, daffodils, sunflowers, Queen Anne’s lace, black-eyed Susans. I didn’t see any daffodils on our walk. I did see lots of Queen Anne’s lace. It occurred to me at one point that I must resemble a person for whom most of the paintings in a museum register only as “art” and “more art”: I saw mostly “flowers,” and “more flowers.” But I still found this walk through nature a beautiful, restorative experience. And because I asked about one tiny flower I’ve seen many times in town, I brought back a word: flea-bane. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as

a name given to various plants: esp.

a. A book-name for the genus Inula (or Pulicaria), esp. Inula dysenterica and I. Pulicaria.

b. A book-name for the genus Erigeron, esp. E. acre (called also blue fleabane).

c. Applied to Plantago Psyllium (from the appearance of the seed).

The dictionary’s first citation for flea-bane is from William Turner’s Names of Herbes (1548): “Coniza maye be called in englishe Flebayne.” Yes, Conyza is yet another (Latin) name for flea-bane. And yes, Inula dysenterica was used to treat dysentery.

Out on the prairie, I was already wondering if flea-bane is trouble for fleas. And indeed, the dictionary’s second citation confirms it. From Thomas Hill’s Arte Gardening (1593): “The Gnats also be . . . chased away with the decoction of the herbe named Flebane, sprinckled on the beds.” And here’s a page of botanical lore that describes flea-bane being burned to repel fleas and other insects. Flea-bane, bane of fleas!

Back in the OED, the word flea has since 700 signified “a small wingless insect (or genus of insects, Pulex, the common flea being P. irritans), well known for its biting propensities and its agility in leaping; it feeds on the blood of man and of some other animals.” From Geoffrey Chaucer, The Manciple’s Prologue (c. 1386): “Hast thou had fleen al night or artow dronke?”

And sometime before 800, bane signified “a slayer or murderer; one who causes the death or destruction of another.” By 1398 the word meant “poison” and was joined to other words to name poisonous plants or substances. For instance, wolf’s bane or wolfbane. (As in vampire movies, right?)

I did not get a photograph of the prairie’s flea-bane: I was too busy seeing. But here’s a particularly good photograph of some other flea-bane, via Wikipedia.

And here, to provide a stately ending to this post, is an observation Elaine and I just encountered in a little anthology of writing about walking. From Richard Jeffries, Nature Near London (1905): “It is not only what you actually see along the path, but what you remember to have seen, that gives it its beauty.” I remember flea-bane.

See also Verlyn Klinkenborg’s account of “deep taxonomic yearning.” And thanks to Stefan Hagemann for reminding me of the Klinkenborg passage.

Further reading
Savanna vs. prairie