Botanical Misnomer
In one of the early comic annuals there are some amusing lines of Hood’s describing how a country nurseryman had made a large sum out of the sale of a simple little flower which he sold under the name of the “Rhodum Sidus.” This charming name had proved quite an attraction to the ladies, and the flower had become the rage of the season. At length a pertinacious botanist, who found that the flower was a not uncommon weed, insisted on knowing where the nurseryman had got his name from; he elicited the following reply:
“I found this flower in the road beside us,
So christened it the Rhodum Sidus.”