We pick up today from where we left last time: The Top 10 Funniest French Names of Flowers!

Here’s the link to Part 1, if you missed it.

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• NUMÉRO CINQ (NUMBER FIVE): Lis queue de rénard: Eremurus

Eremurus is called in French Lis queue de renard, literally “Lily-Tail-of-a-Fox.”

Shamans and White Magic practitioners (whom we know for a fact make up the best part of our Blog’s new reinvigorated readership) may be easily tempted to confuse this flower with another one of a similar name: l’Amarante queue de renard.

This amarante is in fact widely famous as a plante magique, and looks awfully a lot like a fox’s tail.

Medieval rumors (always on target, when it comes to this kind of stuff) had it that anyone who was lucky enough to get a hold of such a plant would instantly turn (wait for it…) invisible!

(Or naked. But then who cares.)

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• NUMÉRO QUATRE (NUMBER FOUR): Herbe à chat: Catmint

For some mysterious reason, this enigmatic flower is intrinsically, if not biologically, related to les chats (cats): In English, it’s Catmint (not just for those of our feline friends with bad breath.)

And en français?

It’s Herbe à chat, namely “Cat Grass“!

I know what you’re thinking: Is it a flower exclusively marketed to vegetarian cats?

Smoking cats, maybe?

We may never know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZmJesEN3XM

Nearly 75% of cats become “high” (or something like that) under the influence of the Herbe à chat (Catmint) 

Tell your cat to just say non

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• NUMÉRO TROIS (NUMBER THREE): Iris Tigré: Belamcanda

Still in the “feline” category, but a tad bit more ferocious, is the French name of Belamcanda.

Well, let me go ahead and warn you: This is one flower you probably don’t wanna mess with.

It’s called Iris Tigré, or “Tigered-Iris“!

(Here, kitty, kitty?)

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• NUMÉRO DEUX (NUMBER TWO): Monnaie du Pape: Honesty

At this stage comes Miss Honesty (who’s still the “Best Policy“, notwithstanding its second rank in our TOP 10.)

A pretty cute name for a flower, indeed.

In French, however, it has the rather surreal name of “monnaie du Pape“, meaning “the small change (of money) of the Pope“!

Well, it may be a bit of a terme inapproprié (misnomer), as the amount of money carried in the Pope’s pocket is most likely not that “small” (something to do with his Holiness having no wife and all.)

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• LE NUMÉRO UN (“ZE” NUMBER ONE, SECOND TO NONE): Canne à pèche des anges: Dierama

Finally, you already were aware of the fact that angels were fully armed with all sorts of toys and tools.

Remember Cupid’s deadly arsenal of WMDs (bows, arrows, and all)?

What you probably didn’t suspect, however, is that these celestial beings occasionally enjoy going fishing (when? On Sundays, obviously.)

For that, they using a 100% made-in-heaven canne à pêche (fishing rod.)

Hence the name of Dierama in French: “Canne à pêche des anges” (or “Fishing Rod of Angels.”)

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• Pictures shared by Barbara Delmazzo-Tempel and vincen-t via Flickr