Uncommon Names

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ILLUSTRATION BY LINDA COOK DEVONA

Aunt Murgatroid is picky
Over what we call her plants!
And though she’s always fussing,
She’s the best of all our aunts.

“Don’t call that yellow foxglove!
It’s digitalis grandiflora!”
“But, Auntie, I can’t thay thoth wordth,”
Says little Lindsey Laura.

“And this,” says our Aunt Murgie,
“Is a rosa polyantha.”
“It sure looks like a rose to me,“
Says my sister Nell Samantha.

“And this one here,“Aunt Murgie says,
“A dandy Bellis perrenis.
“It’s not a daisy, then?” say I—
Her nephew Bradford Dennis.

We do that just to rile her—
Use common names for flowers;
For though she knows their proper names,
She can’t remember ours!

This article was published originally in 2022, in GreenPrints Issue #128.


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