Herb. Also 6 buckes beanes. [App. a transl. by Lyte of the Flemish bocks boonen ‘goat’s beans’; cf. mod.Du. bocksboon, Ger. bocksbohne (1586 in Grimm). (Another name of the plant, of later appearance, is BOG-BEAN, which may be a rationalizing alteration of buck-bean, unless, like bog nut, bog trefoil, it is quite independent in origin.)]
A water plant (Menyanthes trifoliata) common in bogs in Britain, and widely diffused over the northern hemisphere; it bears racemes of pinkish white flowers.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, IV. lxxviii. 542. Of Buckes Beanes—Marrishe Trefoyl…. This herbe is called … in Brabant, Bocxboonen that is to say Bockes Beanes, bycause it is like the leaues of the common Beane.
1676. Phil. Trans., XI. 743. Several men cured of the Gout by a decoction of Trifolium palustre (Marsh-trefoil or Buck-beans).
1755. Gentl. Mag., 431. Two or three dishes of chocolate … or two dishes of bucbean tea.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xvi. 176. Marsh Trefoil, Buckbean, or Bogbean.
1863. Baring-Gould, Iceland, 191. The broad leaves of the buckbean float on the red water.
1866. Treas. Bot., 736. The beautiful Buckbean or Marsh Trefoil … a most desirable acquisition to ornamental ponds.
