How did tarragon get its name?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

June 21, 2002

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Linnaeus named tarragon, Artemisia dracunculus, the species epithet meaning "little dragon". John Gerard (The Herbal, 1633) referred to the plant as Draco herba, the dragon herb and Dracunculus hortensis, the little dragon of the garden. Gerard offers no uses for tarragon other than as a salad herb with a warning, "... not to be eaten alone in sallades, but joined with other herbes, as Lettuce, Purslain, and such like, that it may also temper the coldness of them...."

Tarragon Dracunculus hortensis, the little dragon of the garden.
Tarragon, Plate 116 from "A Curious Herbal," Published 1782
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Mrs. Grieves in A Modern Herbal (1931) stated, "To this, as to other Dragon herbs, was ascribed the faculty of curing the bites and stings of venomous beasts and of mad dogs." Tarragon was said associated with dragons or protection from dragons.

Eric Partridge in Origins (1983) offered this explanation: "Greek, drakon, a dragon, has [the] diminutive, drakontion, with [the] derivative sense 'adderwort, snakeroot'..." He suggests that drakon became the Arabic word, tarkhun. From the Arab physicians the name came to Spain becoming, taragona. The modern Spanish and French common name is estragon from which came the English, tarragon.

Partridge may have the correct sense of the word for dragons and snakes (little dragons) were believed born from the earth and living underground. The Doctrine of Signatures would state that to combat these beasts, one should have a plant with a similar characteristic. Gerard described the habit, "The root is long and fibrous, creeping far abroad under the earth...."

The InsectNet has a photograph of tarragon which strangely is native to southern Eurasia and to North America west of the Mississippi River. To view the photograph, click on the link:

http://www.insectnet.com/photos/flora1/artemesia1.htm

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