What is aronatus?
I'll twine 'mid the ringlets
Of my raven black hair,
The lilies so pale
And the roses so fair,
The myrtle so bright
With an emerald hue,
And the pale aronatus
With eyes of bright blue.
- "I'll Twine 'Mid the Ringlets" (1860),
Words by Maud Irving
If the aronatus was a flower, the name itself was not one that
survived to our day. It apparently cannot be found in any botanical
Index of flower names. It may have been an unofficial appellation
local to the author of the lyrics rather than an official botanical
name, perhaps coined by someone with a knowledge of Latin. The
word's derivation might be, for example, from the Latin (aro =
plow, till, produce by plowing; natus = spring forth, grow; be
born), in which case the aronatus may have been a wildflower with
white petals and a bright blue center that could often be found
growing from recently tilled (plowed) earth.
However, all this is conjecture. Another, and perhaps more
likely possibility, is that the word aronatus might be a
mondegreen, a mishearing or misremembering of another flower name,
perhaps the amaranthus.