cuckoo-flowern.
A name given to various wild flowers which are in bloom when the cuckoo is heard.
a. The Lady's Smock, Cardamine pratensis, a cruciferous plant common in meadows.
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the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > particular cultivated or ornamental plants > particular flower or plant esteemed for flower > [noun] > cruciferous flowers > white or purple flowers
garden rocket1548
queen's gillyflower1573
cuckoo-flower1578
damask violet1578
dame's-violet1578
rogue's gilliflower1578
wild passerage1578
lady's smock1593
Canterbury bells1597
close-sciences1597
sea stock-gillyflower1597
cardamine1609
melancholic gentleman1629
melancholy gentleman1629
Whitsun gilliflower1656
Hesperis1666
rocket1731
queen's violet1733
queen's July-flower1760
Virginian stock1760
spinka1774
damewort1776
virgin-stock1786
pink1818
sea-stock1849
clown's mustard1861
rock beauty1870
milksile-
1578 H. Lyte tr. R. Dodoens Niewe Herball v. lx. 625 Called..in Englishe, the lesser Watercresse, and Coccow flowers.
1773 J. Hawkesworth Acct. Voy. Southern Hemisphere II. i. 61 Scurvy-grass..resembles that which in England is called Lady's smock, or Cuckow-flower.
1833 Ld. Tennyson Poems 38 Each quaintly-folded cuckoopint And silver-paly cuckoo flower.
b. The Ragged Robin, Lychnis Flos-cuculi.
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the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > particular cultivated or ornamental plants > particular flower or plant esteemed for flower > [noun] > campions and catchflies
rose campion1530
jagged pink1574
cuckoo-gilliflower1578
flower Constantinople1578
marsh gilliflower1578
wild William1578
crow-flower1597
gardener's delight1597
nonsuch1597
cuckoo-flower1629
fair maid of France1629
meadow pink1660
Bristol Non-such1668
flower of Bristol1672
knight-cross1725
ragged robin1731
fair maid of Kent1813
flower of Jove1840
mullein pink1840
fire pink1848
sticky catchfly1908
1629 J. Parkinson Paradisi in Sole xxxviii. 256 Some call them in English Crowflowers, and Cuckowe flowers, and some call the double hereof, The Faire Maide of France.
1777 J. Lightfoot Flora Scotica I. 239 [Lychnis flos cuculi] Meadow Pinks, Wild Williams, Cuckow Flower, or Ragged Robbins. Anglis.
1861 A. Pratt Flowering Plants & Ferns Great Brit. I. 227.
c. Also applied locally to Orchis mascula and O. Morio; Red Campion, Lychnis diurna; Greater Stitchwort, Stellaria Holostea; the Cuckoo-pint; Wood Sorrel; Wild Hyacinth, and others. See Britten and Holland Plant Names.
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1608 W. Shakespeare King Lear xviii. 4 With hor-docks, hemlocke, netles, cookow flowers, Darnell and all the idle weedes that grow, In our sustayning, corne.
1802 W. Wordsworth Foresight Here are daisies..Pansies, and the cuckoo-flower.
1820 J. Clare Poems Rural Life (ed. 3) 208 Where peep the gaping, speckled cuckoo-flowers.
1865 Cornhill Mag. July 34 The orchis is his ‘cuckoo-flower,’ because it blossoms when the cuckoo is first heard.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1893; most recently modified version published online June 2020).
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