Wildflowers of Ainsworth: White Avens

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Geum canadense. Quite a few of these grow along the EJ&E trail east of S.R. 51, which is where I first identified this — but the mosquitoes were devouring me and Maya both and I didn't feel like taking the time to photograph such an unimpressive flower. Then I got home and found this one blooming in my front yard.

The only remotely interesting things I can find about this genus comes from Jack Sanders. He explains the common names for it — bennet, way bennet and herb-bennet:

This is a corruption of either Herba benedicta ("blessed herb") or "St. Benedict's herb." The latter was a term applied to several plants used as antidotes. According to legend, the name comes from St. Benedict, who founded the Benedictine order of monks. A fellow monk once gave a cup of poisoned wine to St. Benedict, but as the saint blessed the wine, the poison — likened to a devil — flew out of it with such power that the cup disintegrated, thus disclosing the murder plot.

And he cites a medieval health manual which stated that if you keep a root of this plant in your house, Satan can do nothing there, and if you carry it about your person, "no venomous beast can harm [you], wherefore it is blessed before all other herbs."