Species Ajuga remota

Possibly Gk. a- = without; zygo, zygon (La. jugum) = yoke. Linnaeus imaginatively named it Ajuga, meaning ‘has no ox’s yoke’, because the buds on the spike are not connected. This has been interpreted, variously, as an allusion to the fact that the calyx is not divided and is in fact a single petal, or that the sepals surrounding the buds are not connected, or that this is a reference to the apparently missing upper corolla lip. (Umberto Quattrocchi has suggested that this name could be a corruption of an old Latin name Abiga, applied by Pliny the Elder to another plant.)