Gaura's Trumpets and Radha-dendrons.

Daffodils? No, no - they're Gaura's trumpets!

A few years ago, at one of our temple gardening-days, we sat around at lunch-time, musing about the names of flowers and trees. There are many flowers and plants named after Christian saints, or biblical scenes, such as Jacob's Ladder and Solomon's Seal or St. John's wort. And several after Our Lady, the mother of Christ, such as marigolds (Mary-golds) and the Madonna lily. There's also a Pasque flower which blooms at Easter, a Christmas rose and a Passion flower.

In our country, centuries ago, the Bible was the only book which most people knew of, and hearing, or reading only stories from the Bible, they naturally saw the world around them in terms of those stories.

This seemed to us such a nice thing to do - to name things around us in such a way that our thoughts will always be led back to God. It would help our meditation on Krishna, to see everything connected with Him in this way; Why not be inventive, and rename the world? Well, maybe not all of it, but we could start with a few flowers: daffodils immediately became 'Gaura's trumpets', because they always bloom around the time of Lord Chaitanya's feast-day and look like golden trumpets heralding His arrival. The Rhododenrons became 'Radha-dendrons'; and the marigolds we grow for making garlands for Radha-Madhava we call 'gopi-golds' after the cowherd girls of Vraja - who love Krishna the most. And the idea works; these flowers now seem more intimately a part of Krishna's world.

One thought, dear to our hearts, was to have a rose named after Srila Prabhupada. It's possible to ask a rose-breeder to do that, but you have to pay several thousand pounds for it. Maybe one day! We think it should be of a delicate saffron colour, with a strong, sweet fragrance.

I wonder if any of our readers from more distant places would tell us of similar traditions in their own countries. We'd be very interested to know. I've heard of an Arjuna tree in India, and there must be many more such folk-names relating flowers to Krishna and His friends.

Photos: " Radha-dendrons" and "Gaura's Trumpets" blooming now in the temple garden.