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My Autumn Weather

Sunday 22 March 2009

Ooinunofuguri - Dog's Scrotum Major

Few days after I published Seeing Heaven in Wild Flowers http://rosesarerae.blogspot.com/2009/03/seeing-heaven-in-wild-flowers.html

Maki wrote me an e-mail;

"Hi Rae,
That tiny blue flower is flowering in my garden too. In Japan, it is called Ooinunofuguri.

It means dog's scrotum major !! haha. I've no idea who gave such strange name to this cute weed or why??"

Thank you for sharing this with me Maki. What a name! I burst into long train of giggles when I read your lines.....was a good mail to start the day. The people who gave this plant such a name like this, surely have got a good sense of humour.

When I think again about it, that name actually fits well to the tough surviving qualities of this plant. They really can take all kinds of abuse. This is the kind of weed which will not shrivelled and die from heavy foot traffic and don’t even burn and turn brown when dogs peed on them.

Luckily it is a low ground hugging weed and not invasive bushy type, or otherwise would be a nightmare to get rid off from cultivated areas of the garden.

If that blue weed wild flower belonged to the dog, here's another one blooming at this time of year in the garden, commonly known as Dog’s tooth or Erythronium Revolutum





There are many varieties of Dog's tooth and this one is called White Beauty.
Now I wonder if there are other wild flowers called dog’s droppings, which I’ve yet to discover…..

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Erythronium is another flower disappeared from the back bank. I saw it only once after I planted.
It was yellow one but I love this white beauty better.

I'd never seen any pop-ups in your blog and I couldn't imagine such terrible thing was happening. So sorry for you Rae.
Hope you can get rid of them soon.

rae said...

The dog's tooth Erythronium needs good drainage around its feet. Mine is growing in an alpine rock garden corner.

Good news that you don't see any pop ups. That means I've scrubbed up well. I hope it stays that way forever.

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