Note 1388 — Chapter IV · (continued 3)

This name Cassis is curious. Littré says that it seems to have been introduced late into the language, and that he does not know its origin. I have not met with it in botanical works earlier than the middle of the seventeenth century. My manuscript collection of common names, among more than forty names for this species in different languages or dialects has not one which resembles it. Buchoz, in his Dictionnaire des Plantes, 1770, i. p. 289, calls the plant the Cassis or Cassetier des Poitevins. The old French name was Poivrier or groseillier noir. Larousse’s dictionary says that good liqueurs were made at Cassis in Provence. Can this be the origin of the name?