Dogbane
Dogbane, dog-bane, dog's bane,[citation needed] and other variations, some of them regional and some transient, are names for certain plants that are reputed to kill or repel dogs; "bane" originally meant "slayer", and was later applied to plants to indicate that they were poisonous to particular creatures.[citation needed]
History of the term
The earliest reference to such names in common English usage was in the 16th century,
Modern significance of the term "dogbane family"
Some modern sources restrict "dogbane" in its strict sense to the genus Apocynum,[3] but it is doubtful that any such narrow definition could be justified even if it were enforceable. More widely, when authors refer to the "dogbane family" without qualification, they almost always mean Apocynaceae.[4]
"Dogbane" as a term outside the family Apocynaceae
Recent aberrant application of the term
The term "dogbane", either in genuine confusion or as a deliberate sales ploy, has been applied without obvious justification to various groups of plants, such as some species of Plectranthus, a genus in the catnip subfamily Nepetoideae of the mint family Lamiaceae. None have been reported to be especially harmful to dogs or cats, but some have been said to emit repellent essential oils when bruised, discouraging pets from visiting garden beds.[6]
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-861271-1.
- ^ Hospital Physician. F & F Publications. 1979.
- ^ Range Plant Handbook. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1937. pp. 246–.
- ISBN 978-0-520-23709-4.
- ^ Pedanius Dioscorides; Marcellus Vergilius (1518). De materia medica: libri sex. Iunta. pp. 513–.
- ^ "Lamiaceae".