"old Norse _runa_, a charm, from its being supposed to have power to
avert evil." Similarly, the adder's tongue (_Ophioglossum vulgatum_) is
said to be from the Dutch _adder-stong_, and the word hawthorn is found
in the various German dialects.

As the authors of "English Plant Names" remark (Intr. xv.), many
north-country names are derived from Swedish and Danish sources, an
interesting example occurring in the word _kemps_, a name applied to the
black heads of the ribwort plantain (_Plantago lanceolata_). The origin
of this name is to be found in the Danish _kaempe_, a warrior, and the
reason for its being so called is to be found in the game which children
in most parts of the kingdom play with the flower-stalks of the
plantain, by endeavouring to knock off the heads of each other's mimic
weapons. Again, as Mr. Friend points out, the birch would take us back
to the primeval forests of India, and among the multitudinous instances
of names traceable to far-off countries may be mentioned the lilac and
tulip from Persia, the latter being derived from _thoulyban_, the word
used in Persia for a turban. Lilac is equivalent to _lilag_, a Persian
word signifying flower, having been introduced into Europe from that
country early in the sixteenth century by Busbeck, a German traveller.
But illustrations of this land are sufficient to show from how many
countries our plant names have been brought, and how by degrees they
have become interwoven into our own language, their pronunciation being
Anglicised by English speakers.

Many plants, again, have been called in memory of leading characters in
days gone by, and after those who discovered their whereabouts and
introduced them into European countries. Thus the fuchsia, a native of
Chili, was named after Leonard Fuchs, a well-known German botanist, and
the magnolia was so called in honour of Pierre Magnol, an eminent writer