Spignel, spigurnel, and baldmoney are not partners in a downtown law firm but rather are alternative names for a plant whose root, during the sixteenth and seventeenth century, was dried, ground, and used as a spice. The oldest of these names, baldmoney, dates back to the late fourteenth century but has nothing to do with medieval barbers or bankers; instead, it likely derives from a long-lost French source. Spignel, which first appears in the early sixteenth century, is probably just a shortened form of the somewhat older spigurnel, first recorded in the early fifteenth century. The Medieval Latin plant-name, spigurnella, is the source of the English spigurnel, although where spigurnella came from is unknown.