In Serbo-Croatian, “petoprsnica,” literally meaning “of five fingers.”Ī few studies have conducted a multilingual comparison of the same plant species to understand its performance, perception, and use across its area of distribution. is called “five fingers herb” (or names containing the words “five,” “fingers,” “hand” or “foot”) in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Greek, Romanian, Polish, Lithuanian, Catalan, Basque, and Chinese, due to the leaf morphology. Consider the olive tree, which in the Mediterranean is both omnipresent and widely used yet is known simply as the “olive tree.” On the other hand, some plants’ names are quite similar in the different languages of the places where they grow, for example, Potentilla reptans L. Functionality, however, is no guarantee of name diversity. has a variety of names throughout Greece, which probably reflects the importance of the plant for local societies. The proliferation of names for individual botanical species is related to a variety of factors: the geographical range of the plant and languages spoken in its area, the ethnobotanical value as a ritual and/or medicinal plant, its strange appearance or resemblance to familiar objects, etc.). Some names refer unequivocally to a specific plant species (monosemic name), while other names can be used for different plants (polysemic names). Gledhill noted that “Common plant names present language at its richest and most imaginative.… Local variations in common names are numerous and this is perhaps a reflection of the importance of the plant in general conversation in the kitchen and in herbalism throughout the country in bygone days.”

A spatiotemporal analysis of the mandrake’s names supports the old idea that the pulling ceremonies for this plant originated in the Near East and that various other myths related to this plant may have originated in different places and periods. This frequency distribution of the mandrake’s vernacular names reflects its widespread reputation as related to the doctrine of signatures, beliefs in its supernatural, natural, and mythic powers, and to a lesser extent, its uses in magic and medicine. The salient groups of the plant’s vernacular names are related to: Anthropomorphism (33 names in 13 languages) Similarity to other plants (28/9) Supernatural agents (28/9) Narcotic effects (21/8) Leaves, fruits, and seeds (21/8) Aphrodisiac properties (17/10) Use of a dog (15/9) Gallows (14/5) Black magic, sorcery, witchcraft (13/8), and Medicinal use (11/7). The names were classified into the following main categories: Derivatives of mandragora (19 languages), alraun (7) and of yabroukh (5).

We used the plant’s morphological data, philology, myths and legends, medicinal properties and uses, as well as historical evidence and folkloric data, to explain meaning, origin, migration, and history of the plant’s names.

This paper presents an attempt to reconstruct the historical, ethnobotanical, and folkloristic roots of 292 vernacular names of Mandragora spp. Due to its unique properties and related myths, it is not surprising that this plant has many names in many languages. In many cultures, mandrake is related to magic and witchcraft, which is said to have a psychosomatic effect (especially when mandrake contains narcotic compounds) in addition to the pharmacological influence, as occurs with other narcotic magical plants. Mandrake ( Mandragora spp.) is one of the most famous medicinal plant in western cultures since Biblical times and throughout written history.

Mandrake boys guide