Talk:Plumbago

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plumbago is within the scope of WikiProject Carnivorous plants, an attempt to better organise information in articles related to carnivorous plants. For more information, visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.
Low This article has been rated as Low-importance for WikiProject Plants assessment.

[edit] Latin name meaning?

From what I can recall from college, "Plumbago" refers to the blue flowers, not a cure for lead poisoning (lead poisoning was not known of until much more recently!) SB Johnny 16:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I wondered about that, too. This article is likely the source of that information. I've also found other references to "Plumbago" as being a term for "Blacklead." I don't know what the ultimate source of that information is... I'll do some digging and see what else I find. Thanks for bringing this up! -Rkitko 00:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
OED derives the name from the colour of the flowers, but as the name dates back to Classical Latin at least, that may be uncertain. The lead poisoning cure may be a later idea, perhaps developed from the doctrine of signatures - MPF 11:38, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I won't be spending time looking this us, but lead has been historically used to make blue in alchemy, etc. SB Johnny 11:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

This article should be linked with the wikipedia article for Ceratostigma. 67.76.32.10 16:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)