filipendulous

If something is filipendulous, it means it’s hanging by a thread or a filament. It’s most often used to describe things that appear suspended by delicate or slender attachments, and look like they could drop at any moment. Like a spider suspended by a single thread. Or my sanity.

Like many of our words (especially the complicated ones), filipendulous comes from Latin. It’s a combination of the Latin word ‘filum’ meaning ‘thread’, and ‘pendere’ which means ‘to hang’.

You’re most likely to come across the word filipendulous in botany, where it’s used to describe plants with structures on fine stalks or threads. There’s actually a genus of plants called Filipendula containing 12 species of perennial herbaceous plants. That includes meadowsweet and dropwort, and the excellently named queen-of-the-forest (Filipendula occidentalis) and queen-of-the-prairie (Filipendula rubra), both of which are native to North America.

Filipendula species are food plants for the larvae of some Lepidoptera (AKA butterflies and moths) species, including the emperor moth, one of the biggest in the world. The largest emperor moth has a wingspan of between 15 and 20cm (6 to 8 inches). Yeesh. (I’ve literally just finished reading ‘The Travelling Bag’ by Susan Hill which makes this fact particularly freaky. If you know, you know.) These moths live in Europe, but haven’t made it across the Channel to us (YET). Having said that, our largest moth is the privet hawk moth, which can get up to a not-too-shabby 12cm (4.7in) wingspan.

You wouldn’t want either of those flapping round your bedroom light, would you?

scion

I’ve recently been watching the show ‘A Discovery of Witches’ (based on the ‘All Souls Trilogy’ by Deborah Harkness) and in the third series the word ‘scion’ is used to describe a magical being born from unions (by which I mean sexy sex, tee hee) between witches, vampires, daemons and humans.

Scion also has a couple of rather more mundane definitions in the real world. The first one is a figurative one – it’s used to refer to a descendant, heir or offspring, especially in the context of a family or lineage. Usually a posh family or lineage. If you move in those types of circles then you might have heard the phrase ‘scion of a wealthy family’. Lucky you.

How do you like them apples?

The second explanation is a botanical one. In this context a scion refers to a shoot or twig that’s cut off and then grafted onto another plant. This all sounds a bit Frankenstein to me as a non-gardener (although I did grow two whole lettuces this summer), and allows horticulturists to combine the nice bits of two different plants into one. For example, they might graft a scion from a tree with yummers fruit onto a rootstock which has good disease resistance, or likes a certain type of soil (more on that in a minute).

‘Scion’ has its roots (geddit?) in Middle English and was borrowed from Anglo-French, which itself originated from continental Old French. The French term ‘cion’ meant ‘offspring’ or ‘new growth of a plant’, and came from a combination of a West Germanic root (again, sorry) meaning ‘sprout’ or ‘bud’. The horticultural meaning came first (in the 14th century), and the posh family meaning probably followed due to the metaphorical idea of a new growth or offshoot representing the continuation of a family or lineage.

Grafting scions is used for most commercially successful apples, because it’s basically impossible to grow a particular type of apple tree from a seed. So if you’re eating a Granny Smith and plant one of the seeds, you won’t get a Granny Smith tree. That’s because apple seeds are a result of sexual reproduction (tee hee again), meaning they inherit genetic material from both the mother tree (the apple variety you’ve just eaten) and a pollen source (which has to be a different apple tree). Apple trees also take bloody ages to grow. That makes grafting a scion from a mature, known tree onto a rootstock much quicker and more reliable, as it means the new tree will be genetically identical to the parent and have the same characteristics. So basically all the apples we eat are CLONES. Mind blown.

cocktail

Summer is finally here (at least for the next day or so). And what better way to celebrate than with an ice-cold glass of something colourful and cold, maybe with an umbrella in it? But have you ever wondered why pina coladas, mojitos, bellinis et al are called cocktails? Well, the answer is… no one really knows.

Thankfully there are a few theories (which is good, cos otherwise this would be a really short post).

1. The horse theory

Back in the 17th century, the word ‘cock tail’ was used to describe a horse with a docked (i.e. cut short) tail. From there, ‘cock-tailed’ came to be used to describe non-thoroughbred racehorses. The theory goes that it was then applied to drinks made up of lots of mixed ingredients.

2. The eggcup theory

In late 18th century New Orleans, an apothecary (which seems to be synonymous with ‘barman’ in this context) by the name of Antoine Amédée Peychaud used to serve brandy in eggcups alongside bitters (I’ve learnt that ‘bitters’ refers to ‘alcohol infused with plant matter’ which sounds pretty gross to be honest. I also read it described as ‘spirits infused with fruit, spices, leaves, bark, roots and herbs – collectively known as botanicals’ which sounds all organic and artisanal, and also yum. Just goes to show the power of words… Also, you can still buy Peychaud’s bitters today). The theory is that ‘cocktail’ is a mispronounciation of the word ‘coquetier’ i.e. the French for eggcup.

3. The dregs theory

Ye olde tavern owners used to combine the dregs from the end of barrels and sell them off at a discount. These were called ‘cock tailings’, ‘tailings’ being another word for dregs, and ‘cock’ (no sniggering at the back) another name for the spigot or tap of a barrel.

So what’s the real story?

Well, according to spirits historian David Wondrich (I so wish this was my job), who’s done extensive research into this, the closest one to the truth is number 1 – the horse theory. But it’s actually a much more shady tale (or tail). Let’s head back to the 18th century again. Imagine you were in the market for a new horse. Apparently one of the things you would look for was a cocked (or raised up) tail. To fake this, unscrupulous horse dealers would shove a mixture of ginger and/or pepper up horses’ arses, the utter bastards. Ginger and pepper were also common ingredients used to liven up alcoholic drinks – hence, cocktail.

It certainly gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘bottoms up’…

orchid

Ah, human beings. We’re fundamentally filthy. And naming stuff is no exception. The word ‘orchid’ – those beautiful blooms so beloved that they’re the national flowers of at least eight countries (Venezuela, Colombia, Singapore, Costa Rica, Honduras, Belize, Panama and Guatemala, to name just a few) – means ‘testicle’. (See also avocado.) Yup. When you look at the picture below you can probably figure out why…

The Ancient Greek word for testicle is ὄρχις or ‘órkhis’, which is obviously where ‘orchid’ comes from. But we didn’t use that until the mid 19th century. In Middle English orchids were called ‘ballockworts’ which literally means ‘testicle plant’ (from ‘beallucas’, the Old English word for balls). Gotta love those dirty-minded Middle Englanders.

Let’s get our minds out of the gutter for the last paragraph of this post with some orchid facts.

• There are more than 25,000 documented species of orchid, and they grow on every continent of the world except Antarctica (#fail).

• Orchids have bilateral symmetry, which is a posh way of saying that if you draw a line down the middle of the flower, the two halves are mirror images of each other. Human faces also have this, which might be one of the reasons we like them so much.

• Not content with having tubers that look like human bollocks, orchids’ own reproductive bits look like insects. This is so they can trick them into pollinating them, the sneaky little bastards.