How the name arnica was borrowed into Estonian

Abstract

The name of the classical medicinal plant, mountain arnica (Arnica montana), was well known among Estonians at the end of the 19th century, although mountain arnica itself does not grow in Estonia. The folklore collection of the Estonian Folklore Archives indicates that the name was used to denote locally growing plants. The impulse for such renaming of local plants obviously came from popular medical books and almanacs published in Estonian in the 18th-19th centuries. The article discusses a particular example, arguing that foreign names were probably given to folk medicinal plants that were already effectively used. Many of them, however, had not received attention so far by pharmacological research.