Among various
similar names may be noticed the crane's-bill and stork's-bill, from
their long beak-like seed-vessels, and the valerian, popularly
designated capon's-tail, from its spreading flowers.
Many plant names have animal prefixes, these indeed forming a very
extensive list. But in some instances, "the name of an animal prefixed
has a totally different signification, denoting size, coarseness, and
frequently worthlessness or spuriousness." Thus the horse-parsley was so
called from its coarseness as compared with smallage or celery, and the
horse-mushroom from its size in distinction to a species more commonly
eaten. The particular uses to which certain plants have been applied
have originated their names: the horse-bean, from being grown as a food
for horses; and the horse-chestnut, because used in Turkey for horses
that are broken or touched in the wind. Parkinson, too, adds how,
"horse-chestnuts are given in the East, and so through all Turkey, unto
horses to cure them of the cough, shortness of wind, and such other
diseases." The germander is known as horse-chere, from its growing after
horse-droppings; and the horse-bane, because supposed in Sweden to cause
a kind of palsy in horses--an effect which has been ascribed by Linnaeus
not so much to the noxious qualities of the plant itself, as to an
insect (_Curculio paraplecticus_) that breeds in its stem.
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