The Princess and the Plant Trivia Quiz

Answer: Apple

"Little Snow White", which has also been known as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" or simply "Snow White", comes from the German Brothers Grimm. The first edition was published in 1812. There are, however, similar stories in other cultures. Alexander Pushkin's "The Tale of the Dead [or Sleeping] Princess and the Seven Knights" is a Russian poem based on the Grimm fairytale.

"Snow White" is about a queen who longs to have a child with hair as black as ebony wood, lips as red as blood, and skin as white as snow. Her wish is granted, but she dies during the childbirth. The poor princess is raised by her cruel step-mother. She is jealous of Snow White's beauty and even wants to kill her.

Some people have, in fact, accused the fairytale of promoting racism because it seems to equate physical attractiveness with "fair" or light skin. I think it is worth emphasizing, though, that she was supposed to have skin as white as snow, and nobody, unless they are an albino, has skin *that* light!

In the German text, the wicked step-mother queen tries to kill Snow White with a red and white colored apple. Interestingly, only the red part is poisoned, but of course Snow White doesn't know that--so when she sees the witch eat the white part and not die, she thinks it is fine to eat the red part. The queen plays such a dirty trick! Thankfully, Snow White doesn't actually die.

Answer: Rampion bellflower

The rampion bellflower plays a central role in "Rapunzel". Rapunzel's pregnant mother sees the beautiful flowers in a witch's garden and desires to have them. The witch catches Rapunzel's father stealing her rampion and says that his wife can have the flowers, but under one condition: they must give their daughter to her after she is born.

So, in order to get some flowers, they allow an evil woman to take their child. Wow, great parents. To be fair, the father agrees to the woman's deal out of fear for his and his wife's lives.

Rampion bellflowers are commonly purple and purplish-blue, which could be why the princess is sometimes portrayed wearing a purple gown.

Answer: Rose

There are countless tales similar to "Beauty and the Beast" in various cultures and the Roman myth "Cupid and Psyche" is possibly the oldest variation. The most popular version, however, is by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont and it was published in 1756. De Beaumont based hers on Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's 1740 version.

Beauty (or Belle) asked her father to bring her a rose back from his trip. She didn't really care about a gift, but because her sisters, who were asking for dresses and such, would have teased her if she asked for nothing, she said that she wanted a rose. Her merchant father found a bush full of roses, but they belonged to none other than the Beast.

Answer: Pumpkin

In Perrault's 1697 French version of "Cinderella", also called "The Little Glass Slipper", Cinderella's fairy godmother transforms a pumpkin out of Cinderella's garden into a coach so that she can attend the ball.

The name Cinderella derives from the French word "Cendrillon", which means "little ashes" or "little ash girl". This wasn't her actual name, but rather a mean nickname from her step-sisters.

Similar to the princess Snow White, Cinderella's mother also died. But Snow White's mother died in childbirth, while, at least in the Grimm version (not so clear in Perrault's), Cinderella's mother died when she was a few years old. This means that Cinderella would have been closer to her mother than Snow White would have been to hers.

Answer: Water flower shaped like the sun

In Hans Christian Andersen's beautiful but tragic love story, "The Little Mermaid", she has a garden with red flowers shaped like the sun.

Each of the mermaids had underwater gardens, but the youngest princess shaped her flowers differently than her sisters did. For example, one sister shaped her flowers to resemble a whale, and another sister shaped hers to look like a mermaid. The Little Mermaid's choice of form and color for her flowers reveal her love for the land, even as a seven year-old child. When she meets a human prince at age fifteen, her interest in the world above the ocean increases.

In addition to her flowers, the seven year-old also had a pink weeping willow that she planted near her statue, which was of a human boy. According to Andersen, "It [the willow] grew splendidly, and very soon hung its fresh branches over the statue, almost down to the blue sands."

Answer: Briar rose or pink flower

The briar rose is a type of rose, but it isn't the typical rose. It is always pink and its leaves have a sweet apple-like fragrance. Other names for this flower include eglantine, sweet briar, and rosa rubiginosa.

In the Grimm Brothers' version of "Sleeping Beauty", titled "Little Brier [or Briar] Rose", the princess is named after this flower. In addition, her castle, while she was sleeping, was covered in thorns, but when one prince tried to enter, they became sweet briar. Other princes had tried to enter, but the thorns killed them.

The fact the castle allowed one prince to enter suggests that the powers that be were protecting her and saving her for the right man.

Answer: Golden branch

Madame d'Aulnoy's fairytales don't seem to be as well-known as the Grimm Brothers' or even Hans Christian Andersen's stories, but hers are great tales nonetheless. In fact, etymologically, "fairytale" comes from the French "Contes des Fees", the title Madame d'Aulnoy gave to a collection of her stories.

"The Golden Branch" is about an ugly but good-hearted prince. His cruel father, the king, doesn't believe that anyone wants to marry his son, so he plans to have him marry someone who is, at least according to the king, as ugly as the prince. Princess Trognon has a disability and can't walk. At first she refuses to marry him, and likewise the prince doesn't want to marry anyone.

The king locks his son in a tower until he agrees to marry her and eventually the king locks Trognon in a tower as well. At the end, they do marry, but only after meeting a fairy and experiencing a magical golden branch.

Answer: Orange tree

Princess Aimee is a character in Madame d'Aulnoy's "The Bee and the Orange Tree". The orange tree is actually Prince Aime (masculine version of Aimee). The prince and princess love each other, but they are also cousins.

Aimee finds a wand that belongs to an ogre that she had lived with, and turns herself into a bee and Aime into an orange tree. It seems that the reason was because she was trying to hide from the ogre family. However, some travelers run off with the wand, so she can't turn herself and the prince back into humans. A fairy helps them in the end.

On a side note, I was tickled pink when I discovered that there is a fairytale princess named Aimee. See, Mom? I am a princess!

Answer: Pea

"The Princess and the Pea" tells a tale of a young woman who can feel a pea between many mattresses. Because of her sensitivity, the people believe that she is a real princess. However, the princess has no given name or even a familiar title (such as Snow White or Sleeping Beauty), so I asked the question using the tale's title.

While most people would probably consider peas to be vegetables, they are botanically fruit because they contain seeds (just like pumpkins and tomatoes).

Answer: Hazel tree

In the Brothers Grimm version of "Cinderella", there isn't a fairy godmother. Rather, the godmother, if one wants to call it that, comes in the form of a hazel tree and a pretty white bird.

Note that these quotes are from the 1857 edition, which is a little different than the 1812 one.

"Arriving home, he gave his stepdaughters the things that they had asked for, and he gave Cinderella the twig from the hazel bush.

Cinderella thanked him, went to her mother's grave, and planted the branch on it, and she wept so much that her tears fell upon it and watered it. It grew and became a beautiful tree.

Cinderella went to this tree three times every day, and beneath it she wept and prayed. A white bird came to the tree every time, and whenever she expressed a wish, the bird would throw down to her what she had wished for."

The story doesn't use the term "godmother tree", but I believe that could be an appropriate term to use for it. After all, one often thinks of Cinderella having a godmother. This association is primarily thanks to Charles Perrault, though.

Since the Grimm Brothers mention that the tree grew on her mother's grave, one could make the argument that it was related to her biological mother somehow--then again, that suddenly makes the tale creepy in my opinion. To be clear, I don't mean the fact that she planted a tree on her mother's grave is creepy. I mean that her dead mother somehow communicating with her is creepy--in my opinion! Anyway, I discovered that "The Godmother Tree" is the name of a 1992 book by Ruth Wallace-Brodeur.