Solomon's seal
Also 6–7 Salomon's seal(e.
[tr. med.L. sigillum Solomōnis (Salo-, Salamōnis).
The name has been variously explained as referring to the markings seen on a transverse section of the root-stock, or to the round scars left on this by the decay of the stems, or to the use of the root ‘to seal and close up green wounds’.]
1. A plant, Polygonatum multiflorum, the stems of which bear on the upper part broad sessile leaves and drooping green and white flowers.
| 1543 Traheron tr. Vigo's Chirurg. 182 b/2 Of the rootes of salomons seale sodden after the same maner. 1578 Lyte Dodoens 102 White roote or Salomons seale is of two sortes. 1629 Parkinson Kitchen Garden i. vii. 472 Salomon's seal, or (as some call it) Ladder to heauen. 1676 Phil. Trans. II. 629 There grow wild in the Woods, Plantane of all sorts, Yellow-Dock,..Solomons-seal [etc.]. 1767 Abercrombie Ev. Man his own Gardener (1803) 553 Now is also a proper time to..transplant the roots of..Solomon's seal. 1785 Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xviii. (1794) 249 This species is distinguished from Solomon's-seal..by the flowers growing on a scape or naked stalk. 1826 Miss Mitford Village Ser. ii. (1863) 410 The pendent drops of the stately Solomon's seal, which hang like waxen tassels under the full and regular leaves. 1857 A. Gray First Lessons Bot. (1866) 42 Some rootstocks are marked with large round scars of a different sort, like those of the Solomon's Seal. 1882 Proc. Ber. Nat. Club IX. 462 Celadine and Solomon's seal were cultivated alongside the houses that we passed. |
2. Applied to various other plants (see quots.).
| 1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. App. 327 Solomon's Seal, Pensylvanian, Uvularia. 1846–50 A. Wood Class-bk. Bot. 552 Majanthemum... Convallaria bifolia. Two-leaved Solomon's Seal. Ibid., Smilacina... Convallaria trifoliata. Three-leaved Solomon's Seal. 1856 A. Gray Man. Bot. (1860) 467 Smilacina. False Solomon's Seal. 1898 Morris Austral Eng. 426 Solomon's Seal,..the Tasmanian name for Drymophila cyanocarpa,..also called Turquoise Berry. |