Consider-the-Lilies Web Gallery
Panicled Tick Trefoil
Many of the lilies on display in the Gallery have charming common names that give an almost poetic description of their shape or growing habits. Fawn's Breath and Gill-over-the-ground are but two examples.
Other plants have common names that describe the utility of the plant in herbal medicine, as a pot herb, or in other applications.
Alumroot, or Wild Geranium, used by colonists in tanning leather, is one such wildflower.
Speedwell and Whitlow Grass, were given names that describe the medical applications for which they have been valued through the centuries.
But the common name of this wildflower would seem to be an exception to either naming etymology.
I would guess that this so-called common name came from a botanist rather than the "common" folk.
But, while not poetic or historic in origin, the name is informative...
Panciled refers to the branching of the blossom clusters: Not catchy, but descriptive.
The second part of the name,Tick, is for the seeds that, covered with fine, barbed hairs, catch on anything that happens to brush against them.
Most of us, perhaps, know this plant for the "beggar ticks" that we find caught in our socks after a walk in an overgrown field.
This plant is a member of the Bean or Pea family, Fabaceae, and these pestiferous seeds originate in a specialized bean pod (left) which botanists call a loment. (Other Fabaceae in the Gallery are Rabbitfoot Clover and Hop Clover.)
Trefoil , as you have no doubt guessed, is descriptive of the three-leaflet foliage found at the tips of the Desmodium paniculatum vine.
Go to the Main Directory to consider more lilies of the field.