ABSTRACT
Sparganium. Botanical sources say that Dioscorides and Linnaeus based the name on the ribbon-like leaves of these wetland plants (e.g., Fernald 1950, Munz 1973, Quattrocchi 1999). However, Dioscorides also wrote about sparganosis or spargosis. Those two words are based on Greek spargar, to swell, and refer to breasts swollen with milk (OED 1971). Could it be that both Dioscorides and Linnaeus were talking about the swollen fruit clusters in the plants? At least since the time of Gerarde, these cattail relatives have been called “bur-reed,” in reference to those enlarged fruits. That duality of meaning is just the kind of complexity that Linnaeus loved to use in names.
