Bulbine frutescens, the useful balsam kopiva

Many South Africans plant Bulbine frutescens. It grows easily and strongly, flowers well for long periods and branches much to cover unsightly bare patches in gardens, even where the soil is poor. This is a tough little warrior, undaunted by hot sun, winter cold, or little water. Any plant that doesn’t display accusatory suffering when neglected, is welcomed like family members that supply their own food!

Not enough people know that this plant has proven medicinal value for treating skin conditions, such as burns and insect bites. Its common names, burn jelly plant (just break a leaf and apply the juice to the afflicted area), and balsam kopiva (or copaiba balsam) reflect this benefit.

The name kopiva for the South African succulent has a curious origin. The South American copaiba tree (Copaifera officinalis) had its name "hijacked" long ago in South Africa for this low-growing succulent. The reason at the time was possibly that the two plants shared superior, though tenuously linked medicinal benefits associated with the word balsam. Copaiba is a leguminous tree that yields an essential oil with anti-inflammatory properties through distillation of its gum or resin.

There seems to be nothing other than this fact of impressive healing properties for the link between the two plants growing naturally on two separate continents. Balsam of the Copaiba tree had been used for long in Europe. Cape settlers, familiar with this balsam, learnt about the medicinal value of the Bulbine plant from the indigenous population at the Cape of Good Hope, and Bob's your uncle!

Such naming follows readily amidst a shortage of ideas in the moment: Pressing need meets welcome semantic option arising from striking, but also logically tenuous association! The resourcefulness in such circumstances tends to leave durable traces in the language and practices of parochial populations. And so names and plants are grown.

In Afrikaans, a European origin African language, there are animal names like seekoei (sea cow for hippopotamus), ribbok (reebok) and steenbok (steinbock). All imported names ascribed to newly encountered animals, as early Dutch settlers remembered names of European animals when needing names for what they were looking at. Taking ingenious, in-the-moment shortcuts made people laugh at the time, but the funny name often stuck, as it was needed. It is quite possible that those conferring names in their budding language to African species, had never seen the animals originally bearing the now reused names. Why would the same phenomenon not have happened relating to local plants that made an impression, especially by becoming useful?

The inability to think of an appropriate new name easily leads to the borrowing of a known one. Tsar Peter the Great kept naming newborn sons Peter or Paul after earlier ones bearing those names had died. This would be because of a liking of the names or their connotations, not because of a dearth of available options. Fathoming the motivation behind a name given in the past requires unravelling the situational context of the past moment, knowledge relevant to the situation, the gaps in it, and the no longer heard talk of the times (Wikipedia; www.aromaticsinternational.com; www.plantzafrica.com; www.plants.usda.gov).