Plant Heraldry The PLANT Coat of Arms illustrated alongside is officially documented in Burke's General Armory. The original description of the arms (shield) is as follows:- "AR. A LABEL IN BEND AZ. IN CHIEF A ROSE GU." When translated, this blazon describes the original colors of the Plant Arms as:- "SILVER; A BLUE LABEL PLACED DIAGONALLY IN UPPER THIRD A RED ROSE." Above the shield and helmet is the Crest which is described as:- "STAG TRIPPANT GU." or a "RED STAG WALKING". I am grateful to Member Number 95 of the Plant FHG, Linda Wheeler, and her sister, Ronelle Shields, for producing this colour rendering of the arms.

Possible Explanation

LABELs are generally a sign of cadetship to the head, or the principal line of the family. They are not uncommon, though they are usually appended to the blazon rather than being its initial item. It is also unusual for the label to slope, though the sloping can be interpreted as one of 6 ancient marks of bastardy.

The Plant name is found in proximity to the de Warenne (Plante Genest) affinity. The sloping label of the Plants might allude to an illegitimate cadetship to that affinity.

The Plant offspring may have been in awe of the Plantagenet (more strictly Plante Genest) tradition: a tradition that may even have dated back to Plantevelu of Aquitaine. There has been a popular mythology connecting the Merovingian tradition to Plantevelu (see french origins) though it is probably no more than an oversimplified fiction: the Merovingian practice of polygamy resulted in many bastards and the Plantagenets also are known to have been womanisers. More generally, however, the illegitimate cadetship in the Plant blazon could have related to illegitimate descent from almost anyone.

Heraldic roses are not especially uncommon, though it is rather unexpected that the Plant red rose should be appended after the label. As the last item in the blazon, it might represent a badge of allegiance.

Around 1320 the de Warennes feuded with the Lancastrians, though they lost and were largely disinherited by them by 1347. The red rose might denote a subsequent subserviance of the Plants to the Lancastrians.

A rose of a different colour

By around 1370, the Plant name settled around Prestbury parish in east Cheshire (near the new seat of the largely disinherited de Warennes) and also just to the south in the adjoining parish of Leek in north Staffordshire. Out of 80 arms illustrated in John Sleigh's book the Ancient Parish of Leek, only one has a rose and none a label. The rose is found on a canton for the Rudyerd family of Leek and it is claimed that they were granted it in recognition of Ralph Rudyerd's slaughter of Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485. In 1504, Laurence Plonte granted a tennement to Ralph Rudyerd.

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