Once, while walking in a meadow located near our house, I met a little boy. He asked: “Do you know why the yellow meadow flower was called a buttercup?” Then I drew attention to the small yellow flowers, completely covering the meadow, and thought. I could not answer this question.
Buttercup is familiar to everyone since early childhood. In nature, there are a large number of its species. We have the most common type - caustic buttercup. This is a herbaceous perennial plant, reaching a height of one meter, bare or slightly pubescent, with a direct stem. Its flowers in diameter reach two centimeters, have five golden yellow petals. The plant blooms in late spring and during the summer.
Acid buttercup grows in meadows, clearings, in light forests and as a weed in the fields. There is a variety with terry petals that is grown as an ornamental plant.
Few people who admire beautiful sunny stars in the meadow know why the yellow meadow flower was called buttercup.
All plants are called not by chance. Therefore, any name of the plant can tell an interesting story about its owner. The same happened with the buttercup.
Absolutely all of its parts are poisonous. Therefore, it is impossible for the juice of the plant to fall into wounds, cuts and scratches. Besides the fact that the flower is poisonous, it is also a medicinal plant. In folk medicine, it is used to treat gout, rheumatism, neuralgic and headaches.
... After that meeting in the meadow, many years passed. During this time I read a large number of books about plants, articles from newspapers and magazines, which talk about the names of plants. And now I can say with confidence why the yellow meadow flower was called a buttercup.
So, the name arose precisely because of its burning and poisonous juice. "Hot" in the popular means "fierce." It entered the Russian language in a diminutive form for the small size and beauty of the flowers. So the affectionate word "buttercup" appeared.
In some places in Russia, the plant is also called night blindness. According to legends, chickens blind from these flowers, and people, carelessly rubbing their eyes with the juice of buttercup, cease to see for a while.
In Italy, because of the bright yellow shiny petals, this plant is called "golden buttons."
There is a tradition
among the people during
Holy Week during Great Lent to lay yellow buttercups on the Virgin Mary. According to one legend, Jesus Christ decided to present flowers as a sign of love and reverence for his Mother. To do this, he turned the stars from the sky into small flowers - buttercups.
There is another version of the origin of this plant name. It could come to us from the Latin language, where the word "luteum" means yellow.
In a scientific genus, ranunculus is called ranunculus. This Latin name appeared long ago, and it is translated into Russian as “little frog”, because buttercups growing in the wild, like frogs, prefer to settle in moist, but warm and sunny places. Whatever the answer to the question of why the yellow meadow flower was called a buttercup, this plant is always associated with summer and the sun.