Spikenard (also known as Indian Root, Life-of-Man, and American Spikenard. Spikenard is a bitter extract obtained from the plant of the same name; in ancient and medieval times, spikenard was commonly used to flavour sauces and meat dishes, but fell out of favour as new spices were introduced from the Far East. The plant’s name literally means spike ofnard, spike being an old word for thorn, and nard being the name of an aromatic plant. Spike, in turn, derived from an Indo-European word meaning something pointed, which also gave rise to the English word spine (as in cactus spine and spinal column), and to the Latin word spica, meaning ear of corn (spica then evolved into the English spigot, a tap shaped like an ear of corn). Nard, on the other hand, derives from a Sanskrit word meaning reed, a word that made its way from Sanskrit, to Persian, to Hebrew, to Greek, and to Latin before appearing in English as part of spikenard in the mid fourteenth century.
An aromatic East Indian plant with brownish-purple flowers.