READ ARTICLE (DANISH) ‘Gendered Plant Names’ in Grønt Miljø
How is gender related to Danish plant names? Our project employee Frida set out to investigate the topic. Her findings were featured in the Danish journal Grønt Miljø earlier this year.
When you open a Danish botanical encyclopedia, you’ll find no less than 33 plant names with female connotations (think for example ‘Black Pussy Willow’). For plant names with male connotations, the number is merely 18. This is what Frida, our project employee, noticed when she was reading about Danish botany during her first year studying Landscape Architecture at the University of Copenhagen.
Frida decided to look into the matter.
Systematizing the gendered plant names, she found that plant names for garden flowers with female connotations often had the words ‘virgin’, ‘bride’, and ‘sister’ in them.
Wildflowers, on the other hand, often had names with the words ‘whore’ and ‘hag’ in them. This, Frida concludes, has to do with the fact that the garden historically has been perceived as the woman’s (private) domain.
In her article, Frida lists the different categories of plant names she found in the official Danish botanical encyclopedias:
Plants names with female connotations
- Virgin / Virtue (8 plants)
- Bride / Miss (7 plants)
- Mother / Sister (6 plants)
- Queen / Empress (5 plants)
- Hag (5 plants)
- Whore (2 plants)
Plants names with male connotations
- Emperor (7 plants)
- King (6 plants)
- Knight (1 plant)
- Priest (3 plants)
- Sailor (1 plant)
Frida explains that plants with ornamental, cultivated flowers often belong under the categories ‘virgin’ or ‘virtue’ and ‘bride’. Belonging to the category ‘whore’ are plants that open their petals at night. This almost makes one think of the old English metaphor for a prostitute: ‘a woman of the night’.
Similar to the animal kingdom where the males typically are more elaborately ornamented than females (in order to get the attention of the opposite sex), plant names with male connotations typically have big petals or voluminous flowers.
Unfortunately, Frida’s article hasn’t (yet) been translated to English. But gendered plant names are not a Danish phenomenon. Here’s a few English gendered plant names:
- Nodding Lady’s Tresses (Spiranthes cernua)
- Mother-In-Law’s Tongue (Sansevieria Trifasciata)
- Shaggy Soldier (Galinsoga Quadriradiata)
- Dancing Girl Ginger (Globba schomburgkii)
- Dame’s Rocket (Hesperis matronalis)
Why is discussing plant names important to our research project?
In order to write a more inclusive Danish architecture history, we need to consider the ways in which we interpret gender within the disciplines of landscape architecture. Our project ambition is to suggest an architecture history that isn’t structured around gender but rather transcends gender.
Thanks to editor in chief Søren Holgersen for sharing our research in the magazine.
Visit Grønt Miljø’s website here.
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