A: "What's that stand of trees that are down there by the brook?"
Dr. M: "Cottonwoods. I planted one of them must be thirty-five years ago. The big one. They reproduce like aspens, underground runners. Turned into a nice stand."
A: "When I was working the sawmill, sometimes the locals would bring in a tree they called "barmagillion" or "bahmagillion." I could never figure out what it was. I looked in all the tree books. Never found it. We treated it just like poplar."
Dr. M: "Was it a poplar?. Cottonwoods are poplars."
A: "It took me twenty years to figure out what 'barmagillion' was. Actually, I didn't figure it out. Neill was here with one of those telephones that does everything. He looked it up. It's actually "balm of Gilead."
(I looked it up also. "Balm of Gilead" is another name for what most people around here call "balsam poplar." It's not uncommon but not plentiful either, at least in these parts. I didn't know that the buds are covered with sticky resin used by bees to plug holes in their nests and by humans as a kind of perfume).
"Barmagillion" is distantly related to "folk etymology," as for example when arthritis is called "Arthur Wright."
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