Lavender
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40 free Lavender trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Lavender is one of the most recognisable plants in the world: a silvery shrub with purple flower heads and a scent that has perfumed linen cupboards, bath water and bottles of cologne for centuries. It is also a serious crop, grown by the hillside for its fragrant oil, and a garden favourite that asks for little more than sunshine and good drainage. This quiz covers the plant itself (its relatives, its botanical name, its lookalikes and how to keep it alive), the places around the world that are famous for growing it, and the ways people use it in the kitchen, the medicine cabinet and the perfume bottle. A good share of the questions follow the name into popular culture, from children's books and video games to classic British cinema and chart hits. It is written for gardeners, herb growers, crafters, teachers and anyone putting together a nature or garden-themed trivia night. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will finish knowing more about the purple stuff than when you started.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Lavender, long used to scent baths and linen, is traditionally traced to Latin lavare, meaning what?
To wash
To wash is the usual explanation, since the plant perfumed baths and laundry, though some dictionaries suggest the name began with a Latin word for bluish.
Q 02Which region of southern France draws tourists each flowering season to lavender centres such as Sault and Valensole?
Provence
Provence celebrates the crop every 15 August in Sault, where a festival stages France's championship for cutting lavender by sickle.
Q 03In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which classmate does Lavender Brown date, to Hermione's fury?
Ron Weasley
Ron Weasley starts dating Lavender to spite Hermione, who lashes out at him in return.
Q 04In Pokémon Red and Blue, Lavender Town's Pokémon Tower is the only place to catch which type of Pokémon?
Ghost
Ghost-type Pokémon live among the graves, and the town's eerie background music later inspired an internet urban legend.
Q 05Dried lavender buds grow more potent than fresh ones, so overdoing them gives food which unpleasant aftertaste?
Soapy
Soapy is the cook's warning, so a recipe written for fresh lavender needs only about a third as much of the dried buds.
Q 06Taylor Swift found the title phrase of her hit 'Lavender Haze' while watching which American period drama series?
Mad Men
Mad Men used the phrase for the glow of being in love, and Swift was intrigued to learn it supposedly dated from the 1950s.
Q 07English lavender is not native to England, so which region is the true home of the plant?
The Mediterranean
The Mediterranean basin is its true home, yet English lavender stands up to frost far better than its more tender Spanish cousin.
Q 08Sachets of dried lavender are tucked among stored clothes to add fragrance and to deter which insects?
Moths
Moths are the target, and the same dried flowers are tossed as wedding confetti and stirred into potpourri.
Q 09In the Ealing comedy The Lavender Hill Mob, stolen gold is smuggled abroad as souvenir paperweights of which landmark?
The Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower paperweights lead to a dizzying chase down the real landmark's spiral staircase, and the film won an Oscar for its screenplay.
Q 10In Roald Dahl's Matilda, which creature does Matilda's friend Lavender slip into Miss Trunchbull's water jug?
A newt
A newt it is, and when Matilda gets the blame, her anger reveals an unexpected power: she tips the glass onto Trunchbull by telekinesis.
Q 11Lavender belongs to which plant family, known for square stems and kitchen herbs such as basil and rosemary?
Mint
Mint relatives fill the herb garden: thyme, oregano, marjoram and catnip are all cousins of lavender.
Q 12Which fellow dame plays Judi Dench's sister in Ladies in Lavender, set in a Cornish fishing village in 1936?
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith and Dench were appearing together in a West End play when they were first approached, and both earned European Film Award nominations.
Q 13Lily James sings the old nursery rhyme 'Lavender's Blue' in which 2015 Disney live-action remake?
Cinderella
Cinderella revived a song whose earliest surviving version, an English broadside of the 1670s, is far bawdier than the nursery favourite.
Q 21Which 18th-century botanist merged two long-separate plant groups into the single lavender genus Lavandula?
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus recognised only five species when he published the genus in 1753, where botanists now list dozens.
Q 22Bridestowe, believed to be the world's largest commercial farm of English lavender, lies in which Australian state?
Tasmania
Tasmania's Bridestowe estate was founded in 1922, and its owner named it after the English town where his wife was born.
Q 23Which Balkan country, long famous for rose oil, overtook France in the early 2010s as the top producer of lavender oil?
Bulgaria
Bulgaria grows the crop in its Rose Valley near Kazanlak, where a 2014 report found workers treading the picked blossoms down by foot.
Q 14Lavender, rosemary and garlic steeped in vinegar made the 'four thieves' remedy, believed to ward off which disease?
The plague
The plague remedy is named for thieves who, in the usual telling, robbed the sick unharmed and traded their recipe for leniency when caught.
Q 15Which process, which bursts the tiny oil pockets in the cut flowers, is used to extract pure lavender essential oil?
Steam distillation
Steam distillation carries the oil off as vapour, which condenses on a cold pipe and then separates from the water in a holding tank.
Q 16Which group of US government employees was purged in the 1950s 'Lavender Scare', alongside the hunt for communists?
Gay men and lesbians
Gay men and lesbians were hunted so widely that the campaign persecuted more alleged homosexuals than alleged communists.
Q 17Which US state is home to Sequim, the Olympic Peninsula city nicknamed the Lavender Capital of North America?
Washington
Washington's Sequim lies in a mountain rain shadow and gets about as little rain as Los Angeles, which suits the sun-loving crop.
Q 18Farm Tomita, a much-visited flower farm renowned for its expansive lavender fields, lies on which Japanese island?
Hokkaido
Hokkaido's Furano area is known across Japan for lavender, and even its bus line to the city of Asahikawa is named Lavender.
Q 19Which term, now closely tied to lavender oil, first appeared in print in a 1937 book by chemist René-Maurice Gattefossé?
Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy began as the French title of his book, which billed essential oils as plant hormones.
Q 20Which Ealing Studios star earned his first Best Actor Oscar nomination as the bank clerk in The Lavender Hill Mob?
Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness plays Holland, a seemingly unambitious man who has spent twenty years in charge of bullion deliveries before deciding to steal one.
Q 24Which London perfume house, founded in 1770, made English Lavender its signature scent in the Victorian era?
Yardley
Yardley launched English Lavender in 1873 and exported it to the United States in the 1880s, where it became popular in American households.
Q 25The Lavender Pit near Bisbee, Arizona, named after mining executive Harrison Lavender, was dug to extract which metal?
Copper
Copper came out of the pit until 1974, along with enough fine turquoise to make 'Bisbee Blue' a prized gemstone.
Q 26In Lavandula angustifolia, the botanical name of English lavender, the second word describes which feature of the plant?
Narrow leaves
Narrow leaves gave the species its name, while its older label, officinalis, pointed instead to the plant's use as a medicine.
Q 27Which French Riviera town, whose scents include lavender, jasmine and rose, is known as the world's perfume capital?
Grasse
Grasse began as a leather-tanning town and took up perfume because the nobility disliked the foul smell of its gloves.
Q 28Which lavender lookalike from the steppes of central Asia carries a misleading name, since it is not native to Russia?
Russian sage
Russian sage resembles a much larger lavender, and its crushed foliage is said to smell like a blend of the two herbs.
Q 29Which Game of Thrones actor wrote the screenplay for Ladies in Lavender and made it his debut as a film director?
Charles Dance
Charles Dance, later the screen's Tywin Lannister, said the film would not have happened without his two leading ladies.
Q 30Fougère perfumes, which blend lavender with oakmoss and coumarin, take their name from the French word for which plant?
Fern
Fern is the meaning of fougère, and the family began with Houbigant's Fougère Royale of 1882, a style now especially popular in fragrances for men.