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THE FLOWERING PLANTS 
GRASSES, SEDGES & FERNS 


OF 


GREAT BRITAIN 


Frontispiece, 


CILIATED HEATH , 

Erica ciliaris . 
CROSS LEAVED H. 

E. tetralix . 
MACKAYS H 

E.mackayi 


7 


COMMON 


LING 


Calluna vulgaris . 


Pl. 187, 


PINE LEAVED H 
E. cinerea. 


CORNISH H 
E. vagans 
MEDITERRANEAN 4H. 


E. mediterranea . 


Vol, 


I. 


THE FLOWERING PLANTS 
GRASSES, SEDGES & FERNS 


OF 


GREAT BRITAIN 


AND THEIR ALLIES 


tie CLUB MOSSES, HORSEIMAILS, &c. 
By ANNE PRATT 


NEW EDITION 
REVISED BY EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. 


ILLUSTRATED WITH 
THREE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN COLOURED PLATES 
FIGURING 


UPWARDS OF 1500 SPECIES 
VOL. 1. 


LONDON 
FREDERICK WARNE & CO. 
AND NEW YORK 
1905 


Mt ts 


KORG A 


Appa 


t 
45 


Meee ctl 
LEE 


“aes Oa 


FER 7 1968 


Achillea decolorans 
millefolium 
ptarmica 
tomentosa 

Adoxa moschatellina 

Hgopodium podagraria 

Aithusa cynapium 

Anchusa officinalis 
sempervirens 

Andromeda polifolia 

Angelica archangelica 
sylvestris 

Antennaria dioica 
margaritacea 

Anthemis anglica . 
arvensis 
cotula 
nobilis : c 
tinctoria 

Anthriscus cerefolium 
sylvestris 
vulgaris 

Apargia autumnalis 
hispida 

Apium graveolens . 

Arbutus unedo , ; 

Arctium lappa 

Arctostaphylos alpina 
UWva-ursi . 

Artemisia absinthium . 
campestris . 
ceerulescens . : 
maritime 
vulgaris 

Asperula arvensis . 
cynanchica . 
odorata 

Asperugo procumbens 

Aster tripolium . . 

Atropa belladonna 

Azalea procumbens . 


Bellis perennis . ° 
Bidens cernua - 


CONTENTS. 


VOLE. 


(Arranged according to generic names.) 


Dotted-leaved Yarrow 

Common Yarrow 

Sneeze-wort Yarrow : 

Woolly Yellow Milfoil . 

Tuberous Moschatel 5 

Common Gout-weed 

Fool’s Parsley . ¢ : : : 
Common Alkanet . ‘ : : 
Evergreen Alkanet . 

Marsh Andromeda 

Garden Angelica 

Wild Angelica 

Mountain Everlasting 

Pearly Everlasting 

Sea Chamomile 

Corn Chamomile 

Stinking Chamomile 

Common Chamomile 

Ox-eye Chamomile . 

Garden Beaked Parsley 

Wild Beaked Parsley ; 

Common Beaked Parsley . 
Autumnal Hawkbit . 

Rough Hawkbit 2 : C 
Smallage, or Wild Celery” : c 
Austere Strawberry-tree : 
Common Burdock 

Black Bearberry 


Red Bearberry : : : : 
Common Wormwood ; 5 
Field Southernwood ; , ‘ 
Bluish Wormwood F ; 


Sea Wormwood 

Common Mugwort 

Field Woodr uf : 

Small Woodruff, or See “wort. 
Sweet Woodruff’ ; 
German Madwort 

Sea Starwort 

Common Dwale, or Deadly Nightshade 
Trailing Azalea’ 


Common Daisy : 
Nodding Bur-marigold 


Plate Fig. 


133 
133 
133 
133 

99 

89 

93 
149 
149 
138 

94 

94 
125 
125 
133 
133 
133 
132 
133 

96 

96 

96 
ail 
111 

88 
138 
118 
138 
138 
124 
124 
124 
124 
124 
105 
105 
105 
150 
128 
151 
138 


131 


123 - 


6 
7 
5 
8 
1 
7 
1 
1 
2 
4 
1 


eo WOE NE OANEONHWNAREOAEPNOAKRONAPWH PWD 


Bidens tripartita . 

Borago officinalis . 

Borkhausia fetida 
setosa . : . 
taraxacifolia 

Bryonia dioica 

Bunium flexwosum 

Lupleurum aristatum 
Jaleatum 
rotundifoliwm 
tenwissimvunr 


Callitriche autumnalis . 
pedunculata 
verna . : 

Calluna vulgaris . . 

Calystegia sepium . . 
soldanella . - 

Campanula glomerata . 
hederacea . 5 
hybrida . 0 
lutifolia : 
patula : . 
persicifolia . . 
rapunculus. 
rapunculoides .« 
rotundifolia : 
trachelium . c 

Carduus acanthoides  . 
marianus . : 
nutans . 
tenuiflorus . , 

Carlina vulgaris “ 

Carum bulbocastanum . 
Carut . 


verticillatum 6 
Caucalis daucoides 
latifolia 
Centaurea calcitrapa . 
cyanus 7 
asnardt A 5 
jacea . c . 
NUGT A « - 


paniculata . 

scabiosa 

solstitialis . 
Centranthus ruber . 
Ceratophylluim demersuin 

submersum . 
Cheerophyllum aromaticunr 

aureum 

temulentunr 
Chiora perfoliata . é 
Chrysanthemum — leucanthe- 

mum 

segetwin 
Chrysospleniwm alternifolium 

oppositifoliwnr 
Cicendia filiformis 

pusillum . 
Cichorium intybus 
Cicuta virosa . ; : 
Circea alpina. . : 


CONTENTS 


Trifid Bur-marigold . ; . 
Common Borage . : - 
Stinking Borkhausia 

Bristly Borkhausia . 

Smaller Rough Borkhausia 
Red-berried Bryony 

Common Earth-nut 5 
Narrow-leaved Hare’s-ear : 
Falcate-leaved Hare’s-ear 


‘Common Hare’s-ear . 


Slender Hare’s-ear 


Autumnal Water Starwort 

Pedunculated Water Starwo 
Vernal Water Starwort ; : ; 
Common Ling . Lrontispiece 
Great Hooded Bindw eed . : 


t 


— 


Seaside Calystegia : 
Clustered Bell-flower : 
[vy-leaved Bell-flower . 
Corn Bell-flower . i 
Giant Bell-flower : 
Spreading Bell-flower 
Peach-leaved Bell-flower . 
Rampion Bell-flower 5 
Creeping Bell-flower 
Harebell . : : 
Nettle-leaved Bell-flower . 
Welted Thistle 

Milk Thistle 

Musk Thistle : 
Slender-flowered Thistle . 
Common Carline Thistle . 
Tuberous Caraway 
Common Caraway 
Whorled Caraway . 
Small Bur-parsley . 
Great Bur-parsley . ; 
Common Star-thistle r 
Corn Bluebottle 

Jersey Thistle . 
Brown-rayed Knapweed 
Discoid Knapweed 

Jersey Knapweed 

Greater Knapweed . é 
Yellow Star-thistle . c 


Spur Valerian . é . 
Common Hornwort . 
Unarmed Hornwort 4 


Broad-leaved Chervil 
Tawny-fruited Chervil 
Rough Chervil 
Perfoliate Yellow-wort 


Great White Ox-eye 

Corn Marigold 

Alternate-leaved Mountain Saxifrage 
Opposite-leaved Mountain Saxifrage 
Least Gentianella : 
Guernsey Gentianella 

Wild Succory . : 
Cowbane . , 
Alpine Enchanter’s Nightshade . 


Plate Fig. 


123 
150 
115 


115 
81 
90 
Sil 
91 
91 
91 


80 

80 

80 
137 
144 
144 
134 
154 
134 
134 
134 
154 
154 
154 
134 
134 
10s) 
119 
119 
119 
121 

90 


1 
1 


a 


NAT) NORM OPOAWNCHNONWREPNNEPONWENODUMAWNNATOAT Oe DWE Orb 


Li} 1S) 


MeMoOoOonNnre 


He Or CO 


Circeea lutetiana 
Claytonia alsinoides 
perfoliata 
Cnicus acaulis 
arvensis 
ertophorus . 
heterophyllus 
lanceolatus . 
palustris 
pratensis 
tuberosus 
Conium maculatum 
Convolvulus arvensis 
sepiwin 
soldanella . 
Coriandrum sativum 
Cornus sanguined : 
suecica 
Corrigiola littoralis 
Cotyledon lutea 
umbilicus 
Crepis biennis 
paludosa 
pulchra 
succiscefol ia 
virens 5 
Crithnum maritimum . 
Cuscuta epilinwm 
epithymum . 
europea 
trifolit 
Cynoglossum officinale 
sylvaticum . 


Datura stramoniwin 
Daucus caro'a 
maritimus . 
Diotis maritima 
Dipsacus fullonum 
pilosus 
sylvestris : 
Doronicum pardalianches 
plantagineum 


Echinophora spinosa 
Echiwm violaceunr 
vulgare 
Epilobium alpinunr 
alsinifoliwm 
angustifoliwm 
hirsutum 
lanceolatum 
montanwir . 
palustre 
parviflorwinr 
roseum 
tetragonum . 
Erica ciliaris 
cinerea 
mackayt 
mediterranca 
tetraliz 


CONTENTS 


Enchanter’s Nightshade . 
Sandwort Spring Beauty . 
Perfoliate Spring Beauty . 


Dwarf Plume-thistle 
Creeping Plume-thistle 


Woolly-headed Plume-thistle 


Melancholy Plume-thistle 
Spear Plume-thistle . 
Marsh Plume-thistle 
Meadow Plume-thistle 
Tuberous Plume-thistle 
Common Hemlock 
Small Bindweed : 
Great Hooded Bindweed 
Seaside Convolyulus 
Common Coriander 
Wild Cornel 

Dwarf Cornel . 

Sand Strapwort 

Yellow Pennywort 
Wall Pennywort 
Rough Hawk’s-beard 
Marsh Hawk’'s-beard 


Small-flowered Hawk’s-beard 
Succory-leaved Hawk’s beard 


Smooth Hawk’s-beard 
Sea Sainphire 

Flax Dodder 

Lesser Dodder . 
Greater Dodder 
Clover Dodder 


Common Hound’s-tongue 
Green-leaved Hound’s-tongue 


Thorn-apple 

Wild Carrot 

Sea-side Carrot 
Sea-side Cotton-weed 
Fuller’s Teasel . 
Small Teasel 

Wild Teasel 

Great Leopard’s- bane 


Plantain-leaved Leopard’ s-bane 


Sea-side Prickly Samphire 


Purple-flowered Bugloss 


Common Viper’s Bugloss . 


Alpine Willow- herb . 


Chickweed-leaved Willow ‘herb 


Rose-bay . 
Great Hairy Willow-herb- 
Spear-leaved Willow-herb 


Broad Smooth-leaved Willow-herb 


Marsh Willow-herb . 


Small-flowered Hairy Willow-herb 
Pale Smooth-leaved Willow-herb 
Square-stalked Willow-herb 


Ciliated Heath 
Fine-leaved Heath 
Mackay’s Heath 
Mediterranean Heath 
Cross-leaved Heath . 


apne: ie) 46-2) 


Frontispiece 


Plate Fig. 


79 


121 
120 
120 
120 
120 
120 
121 
121 


3 


to ol i WO F H CODD CO COR OL PWR WNT RW ON NHN WR WON ROHN NE Oe Co co 
— 


NAWPR AON. 


136 
136 


136 
135 

60 
249 


248 
252 
267 
267 


268 
75 
igi 

163 

118 

120 

118 

180 


— 
io 2) 
a 


bho bo 
Kon 


PP OP EP RP OOH PB ONO OO 


bS bh 
a 
co bo 


212 
217 
212 


vill 


Erica vagans 
EHrigeron acris 
alpinus 
canadensis . 
Eryngium campestre 
moritimum 
Erythrea centaurium 
latifolia 
linarvfolia . 
pulchella 
Eupatorium cannabinum 


Fedia auricula 
carinata 
dentata 
eriocarpa 
olitoria 
Filago gallica 
germanica . 
minima . ‘ 
Feniculum vulgare 
Fraxinus excelsior F 


Galinsoga parviflora 
Galium aparine 
boreale 
cruciatum . 
erectum 
mollugo 
palustre 
parisiense . 
pusillum 
saccharatwm 
saxatile 
gspurium 
tricorne 3 
uliginosum. . 
verum c 
Gentiana amarella 
campestris . 
nivalis 
pneumonanthe 
Verna . 
Gnaphaliwm luteo- ‘album 
supinum 
sylvaticum . 
uliginosum . 


Hedera helia 7 

Heliosciadium inundatum 
nodiflorum . 

Helminthia echioides 

Heracleum sphondylium 

Herniaria glabra . 
hirsuta 

Hieraciwm alpinum 
aurantiacum 
boreale é 5 
certnthoides 
murorum 
nigrescens . 
pallidum 
pulosella 


. 


CONTENTS 


Cornish Heath . . 
Blue Flea-bane : 
Alpine Flea-bane. - 
Canada Flea-bane 
Field Eryngo : 
Sea Holly - : 
Common Centaury 
Broad-leaved Tufted Centaur y. 
Danek tufted Centaury : 
Dwarf-branched Centaury 
Common Hemp Agrimony 


Sharp-fruited Corn-salad . 
Carinated Corn-salad ‘ 
Smooth Sharp-fruited Corn- salad 
Hairy-headed Corn-salad . 
Common Corn-salad 
Narrow-leaved Filago 

Common Filago 

Least Filago 

Common Iennel : ¢ 
Common Ash . > : : 


Small-flowered Galinsoga . 
Goose-grass, Or Cleavers . 
Cross- leaved Bed-straw 
Cross-wort Bed-straw 
Upright Bed-straw . 

Great Hedge Bed-straw 
White Water Bed-straw . 
Wall Bed-straw . 
Least Mountain Bed- straw 
Warty-fruited Bed-straw . 
Smooth Heath Bed-straw 
Smooth-fruited Bed-straw 4 
Rough-fruited Corn Bed-straw . 
Rough Marsh Bed-straw . 
Yellow Bed-straw 
Small-flowered Gentian 
Field Gentian . . 

Small Alpine Gentian 
Marsh Gentian 

Spring Gentian 

Jersey Cudweed 

Dwarf Cudweed 

Highland Cudweed . 
Marsh Cudweed 


Common Ivy . : : . 
Least Marshwort . : 3 
Procumbent Marshwort 

Bristly Ox-tongue 

Common Cow-parsnip 

Smooth Rupture-wort 

Hairy Rupture-wort 

Alpine Hawkweed 

Orange Hawkweed 

Shrubby Broad-leaved Hawkweed 
Honey-wort Hawkweed : 
Wall Hawkweed . 
Black-headed Hawkweed . 

Pale Hawkweed é 
Mouse-ear Hawkweed 


Frontispiece 


Plate 
ee 


Fig. 


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CoN OT Or 


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EOP OR WNWHE We we ob 


Page 
216 
175 
175 
174 

44 
43 

241 
242 
242 
242 
167 


117 
116 


Hieracium prenanthoides 
rigidum 
sylvaticum . 
wmbellatum 

Hippuris vulgaris . 

Hydrocotyle vulgaris 

TTyoscyamus niger . 

Hypocheris glabra 
maculata 
radicata 


Llex aquifolium 
Iilecebrum verticillatwm 
Inula conyza 


crithmoides. 

helenium 

salicina : 
Isnardia palustris. : 
Jasione montana . : 


Knautia arvensis . 


Lactuca muratlis 


saligna . 5 
scariola 
Virose 

Lapsana communis 
pusilla 


Lathreea squamaria 
Leontodon taraxacum 
Ligusticum scoticum 
Ligustrum vulgare 
Linnea borealis 
Linosyris vulgaris 
Lithospermum arvense . 
officinale 
purpureo-cerulewin 

Lobelia dortmanna 
UTENS . 

Lonicera caprifolium 
periclymenum 
aylosteum . 

Lycopsis arvensis . : 

Lythrum hyssopifolium . 
salicaria é 


Matricaria chamomilla . 
inodora 
parthenium 

Menyanthes trifoliata 

Menziesia coerulea. 
polifolia 

Mertensia maritima 

Mewm athamanticun 

Moneses grandiflora 

Monotropa hypopithys 

Montia fontana 

Mulgedium alpinum 

AMyosotis alpestris . 
arvensis 
ceespitosa 
collina . Z 


CONTENTS 


Rough-bordered Hawkweed 
Rigid-stemmed Hawkweed 
Wood Hawkweed 
Narrow-leaved Hawkweed 
Common Mare’s-tail 
Common White-rot . 
Common Henbane 

Smooth Cat’s-ear 

Spotted Cat’s-ear 
Long-rooted Cat’s-ear 


Common Holly 

Whorled Knot-grass 
Ploughman’s Spikenard 
Golden Samphire 
Elecampane . 
Willow-leaved Inula. 
Marsh Isnardia c c 


Annual Sheep’s-bit . : 
Field Knautia . : . 


Ivy-leaved Lettuce . 5 
Least Lettuce . . c 
Prickly Lettuce 6 
Strong-scented Lettuce 
Common Nipple-wort . 
Dwarf Nipple-wort . 
Greater Tooth-wort . 
Common Dandelion . 
Lovage : : 
Privet - 
Two-flowered Linnea . 
Flax-leaved Goldy-locks . 
Corn Gromwell : S 
Common Gromwell . 
Creeping, 
Water Lobelia . 

Acrid Lobelia . : 

Pale Perfoliate Honeysuckle 
Common Honeysuckle 
Upright Fly Honeysuckle 
Small Bugloss . 

Hyssop- -leaved Loosestrife 
Purple Loosestrife 


Wild Chamomile. : 
Scentless Mayweed . 
Common Fever-few . 
Buck-bean 

Scottish Menziesia 

Trish Menziesia E 
Sea-side Smooth Gromwell 
Meu, or Bald-money 
Large-flowered Moneses 
Yellow Bird’s nest. 
Water Blinks or Chickweed 
Alpine Blue Sow-thistle 
Rock Scorpion-grass 

Field Scorpion-grass 
Tufted Water Scorpion-grass 
Early Field Scorpion-grass 


or Purple Gromwell . 


Plate Fig. 


117 


116 
117 

80 

88 
151 
ian 
iol 
111 


140 
82 


2 


NOPNHHE RY 


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PNWWNRROWRFNNFENFEWONRHE NWP oo ie) bo 


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Myosotis palustris . 
repens 
sylvatica 
versicolor 


Myriophylium alter niflor wm « 


spicatum 
verticillatwm 
Myrrhis odorata 


@nanthe crocata 
Jistulosa 
fluviatilis . 
lachenalii . 
pimpinelloides 
phellandrium 
silatfolia 

(Enothera biennis . 

Onopordum acanthium . 

Orobanche arenaria 
carophyllacea 
coerulea 
elatior 
hederee 
major 
minor 
picridis 
TAaMOSA 
rubra . ; : 


Pastinaca sativa. 3 
Peplis portula : : 
Petasites vulgaris . 
Petroselinum sativum 
segelum 
Peucedanum officinale 
ostruthium . 
palustre 
Physospermum cornubiense 
Phytewma orbiculare 
spicatum 
Picris hieracioides 
Pimpinella magna 
saxifraga 
Polemoniun ceeruleum . 
Polycarpon tetraphyllum 
Pulicaria dysenterica 
vulgaris 
Pulmonaria angustifolic ia 
officinalis 
Pyrola media 
minor 
rotund fol tu 
secunda 


Ribes alpinum 
grossularia. 
nigrum 
rubrum 

Rubia peregrina 


Sambucus ebulus . 
nigra . 
Sanicula europea . 


CONTENTS 


Forget-me-not . 

Creeping Water Scorpion-g grass 
Upright Wood Scorpion-grass . 
Yellow and Blue Scor pion-<¢ erass 
Alternate-flowered Water Milfoil 
Spiked Water Milfoil 

Whorled Water Milfoil 

Sweet Cicely 


Hemlock-leaved Water Dropwort 
Common Water-Dropwort 
River Water Dropwort 

Parsley Water Dropwort . 
Callous-fruited Water Dropwort 
Fine-leaved Water Dropwort 
Sulphur-wort Water Dropwort 
Evening Primrose : 
Common Cotton-thistle 

Sand Broom Rape 
Clove-scented Broom Rape 
Purple Broom Rape . 

Tall Broom Rape 

Ivy Broom Rape 

Greater Broom Rape 

Lesser Broom Rape . 


Picris Broom Rape . : : 
Branched Broom Rape. ; 
Red Broom Rape : c 


Wild Parsnip 

Common Water Pur: slane . 
Common Butter-bur 

Common Parsley 

Corn Parsley 

Sea Hog’s-fennel, or ‘Sulphur- -weed 
Broad-leaved Hog’ s-fennel 


Marsh Hog’s-fennel, or Milk Parsley 


Cornish Bladder- seed 
Round-headed Rampion 
Spiked Rampion 
Hawkweed Picris 

Greater Burnet Saxifr, age . 
Common Burnet Saxifrage 
Blue Jacob’s Ladder 
Four-leaved Allseed . 
Common Flea-bane . 
Small Flea-bane 
Narrow-leaved Lungwort . 
Common Lungwort ; 
Intermediate ‘Winter-green 
Lesser Winter-green 
Round-leaved Winter-green 
Serrated Winter-green 


Tasteless Mountain Currant 
Common Gooseberry 

Black Currant . ‘ i 
Red Currant . 3 ; é 
Wild Madder F : 


Dwarf Elder. 5 : ‘ 
Common Elda ; 
Wood Sanicle . 


Plate Fig. 
148 2 
148 2 
148° 5 
148 8 
80 4 
80 2 
80 3 
97 4 
92 4 
92 1 
92 6 
G2 az 
92 5 
92 3 
19) 
IAL 4 
152 2 
153 4 
152 4 
1533 
152 1 
153 2 
153 1 
5, 
3 


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CONTENTS x1 

Plate Fig. Page 

Saussurea alpina . Alpine Saussurea. SSS IG a7, 
Saxifraga aizoides Yellow Mountain Saxifr age 86. 7 34 
cernua Drooping Saxifrage . c 86 69 35 
ceespitosa Tufted Alpine Saxifrage c 87 +5 36 

we var. 87 66 36 
geranotdes . Geranium Saxifrage . 87 68 36 

geum . Kidney-shaped Saxifrage . Sone 33 
granulata . White Mountain Saxitrage  . 86 8 35 
hirculus Yellow Marsh Saxifrage . C 86 6 34 
hypnoides Mossy Saxifrage : A Sf call 36 

Ke vars. ; ‘ 87 2,3,4 36 
muscoides Mossy Alpine Saxifrage 5 c My 7 36 
nivalis Chickweed Alpine 86 4 34 
oppositifolia Purple Mountain Saxifr age 86m 5 34 
rivularts Alpine Brook Saxifrage 86 10 36 
stellaris Starry Saxifrage : c c Be he 8) 32 
tridactylites Rue-leaved Saxifrage ; : : co ee) 35 
umbrosa London Pride . : : : ; 5 tld 32 
Scabiosa columbaria Small Scabious : é : : 5 OB) AL 
succisa Devil’s-bit Scabious . : : : 5 HOR) aD) 
Scandix pecten-veneris Common Shepherd’s Needle . : OMS 73 
Sedum acre . Biting Yellow Stonecrop . - op 0 S45. 26 
album White Stonecr Oo) : ‘ : oe VE SS 25 
anglicum English Stonecrop . ; . : Oar ae 25 
dasyphyllum Thick-leaved Stonecrop . : : Sh Ok ee 25 
Sorsterianum Welsh-rock Yellow Stonecrop . o we 27 
reflecum Crooked Yellow Stonecrop 3 : oY 26 
rhodiola Rose-root Stonecrop ; : : 5 6G) el 24 
rupestre St. Vincent’s-rock Stonecrop . 84 8 27 
sexangulare Tasteless Yellow Stonecrop . 2 Be ok ee 218 26 
telephium . : Livelong, or Orpine . ; : é 5 bf 23 
villosum : Hairy Stonecrop. ; : . . 84 4 25 
Sempervivum tectorwm . Common House Leek : ; ; > | eG a 21 
Senecio aquaticus . Marsh Ragwort : : : 5 a LOOT ae S719 
campestris . Field Fleawort : . : ; 5 UD) 9 BURY 
jacobeea Common Ragwort . 5 ; “ 5 28) Be Ize 
paludosus Great Fen Ragwort . : A 5 I) ). alg®) 
palustris Marsh Fleawort ; : ‘ 5 5 ie a ave 
saracenicus Broad-leaved Ragwort’ . : : 5 1 Be 
squalidus Inelegant Ragwort . : F : 20 elle is 
sylvaticus Mountain Groundsel ‘ ; : « MBS GS 
tenwifolius . Hoary Ragwort ‘ ; : . 5 UZ) Ales! 
viscosUs Stinking Groundsel . ‘ ; : lose 8 
vulgaris Common Groundsel . : : ; 5 AS AGT 
Serratula tinctoria Common Saw-wort . : ; eS arom 47 
eselt Libanotis Mountain Meadow Saxifrage c : 1 eh 3 59F 
Sherardia arvensis Blue Sherardia j ; : Peer OMe mmm laltes 
Silaus pratensis Meadow Pepper Saxifrage c . ¢ 6S 60 
Sison amomum Bastard Stone Parsley. : , o of E 49 
Sium angustifolium Narrow-leaved Water Parsnip . : 5 ile = 52 
latifolium . Broad-leaved Water Parsnip. c > @i il 51 
Sinyrnium olusatrum Common Alexanders : : é 5 Yo 71 
Solanum dulcamara Woody Nightshade . : é e svi he = Byl 
nigrum. Common Nightshade ; , : 5 aligh  e e 
Solidago virgawrea Common Golden-rod : : : eee 2S lO 
Sonchus arvensis . Corn Sow-thistle  . . e ablsy ci alee! 
asper . : 3 . Sharp-fringed Annual Sow-thistle . > like 6 iets 
oleraceus Common Anvual Sow-thistle . : . 113 4 = 134 
palustris Tall Marsh Sow-thistle  . ; : ny TUB} 2 alse! 
Symphytum officinale Common Comfrey . : : ‘ » 149 4 “263 
tuberosum . Tuberous Comfrey . ; : 6 ey ay Aas 
Tamaria gallica Common Tawiariskys) “ae 4 9%) |  T8l Caer 


xl 


Tanacetum vulgare 
Thrincia hirta 
Tilleea muscosa 
Tordylium maximum 
officinale 
Torilis anthriscus . 
infesta 
nodosa 


Tragopogon porrifolius 


pratensis 
Trinia vulgaris 
Tussilago farfara . 


Vaccinium myrtillus 
oxycoccos 
uliginosum . 
vitis-idea . 

Valeriana dioica . 
officinalis 
pyrenaica 

Viburnum lantana 
opulus 


Villarsia nympheoides . 


Vinca major 
minor 
Viscum album 


Xanthiwm sirumarium . 


CONTENTS 


Common Tansy . 
Hairy Thrincia . 
Mossy Tillea 

Great Hartwort . 

Small Hartwort. 
Upright Hedge Parsley 


Spreading Hedge Parsley . 


Knotted Hedge Parsley 
Purple Goat’s-beard . 
Yellow Goat’s-beard . 
Common Honewort 
Common Coltsfoot 


Bilberry, or aan 


Cranberry . 
Bog Whor tleberr y 


Red Whortleberr Vv, Or Cowberny 


Small Marsh Valerian 
Great Wild Valerian . 
Heart-leaved Valerian 
Mealy Guelder-rose 
Common Guelder-rose 
Nymphea-like Villarsia 
Greater Periwinkle 
Lesser Periwinkle 
Common Mistletoe 


Broad-leaved Bur-weed 


Plate Fig. 
123 4 
Wats 
Som 
9 3 
Ss 
Sse 
98: 5 
98 6 
UNO 2 
Wig) 
89) 3 
127 2 
136) 
136 64 
U3{5 il 
1360 3 
106° 2 
106 «3 
WO 4 
LO 
UO 
143° 3 
140 5 
140 4 
5 


ee 
oo 
(eS) 
le) 


fhe fT eOWERING. PLANTS 


OF 


uk GREAT BRITAIN 


Order XXVII. ONAGRARIZ—WILLOW-HERB TRIBE. 


CaLyx of 4, sometimes 2 lobes, which in the bud are attached to each 
other by their edges ; calyx-tube more or less united to the ovary ; petals as 
many as the lobes of the calyx, twisted while in bud, falling early ; stamens 
4 or 8, rarely 2; ovary of 2 or 4 cells, often crowned by a disk; style 
slender ; stigma knebbed, or 4-lobed; fruit a berry, or 4-celled capsule. 
This order consists chiefly of herbaceous plants, rarely shrubs, found mostly 
in the temperate parts of the world. None of the plants contain unwhole- 
-some properties, but they contribute little either to medicinal or domestic 
purposes, though some of the species add largely to the beauty of our 
gardens. Several of our most common and ornamental flowers are included 
in it, as the Fuchsias, Clarkias, and Evening Primroses. 

1. WiILLow-HERB (Hpildébium).—Calyx 4-parted, the lobes not combined 
after expansion; petals 4; stamens 8, 4 long and 4 short; capsule long, 
4-sided, 4-celled, 4-valved ; seeds numerous, tufted with long down. Name 
from the Greek epi, upon, and lobos, a pod; the flowers being placed at the 
top of a seed vessel, shaped somewhat like a pod. 

2. EVENING PRIMROSE (nothéra).—Calyx 4-parted, the lobes more or 
less combined after expansion, and bent back ; stamens 8; capsule 4-celled, 
4-valved ; seeds numerous, not bearded. Name in Greek signifying “catch-— 
ing the flavour of wine.” 

3. ISNARDIA.—Calyx 4-parted ; petals 4, or none; stamens 4 ; capsule in- 
versely egg-shaped, 4-angled, 4-celled, 4-valved, crowned with the calyx. 
Named after Antoine d’Isnard, a French botanist. 

4. ENCHANTER’S NIGHTSHADE (Circéa). — Calyx 2-parted; petals 2 ; 
stamens 2; capsule 2-celled, each cell containing a seed. Name from Circe, 
the enchantress. 


1. WILLOW-HERB (Epildbium). 
* Petals unequal in size ; stamens bent down. 


1. Rose Bay, or Flowering Willow (E. angustifélium). — Leaves 
scattered, lanceolate, veined, smooth; flowers somewhat spiked. Plant 
u.—1 


2 ONAGRARLA 


perennial. A variety of this plant occurs very commonly in gardens, having 
larger flowers and shorter capsules, which is sometimes called E. brachy- 
carpum ; this is occasionally found as an escape from gardens. This Willow- 
herb is a rare plant in moist woods in England, though less so in Scotland. 
Some botanists have thought it to be not truly wild, but it has long estab- 
lished itself, and, in some woods, as in those about Wrington, in Somerset- 
shire, whole acres of ground are covered with it ; and it occurs in many parts 
of North Wales. It does not seem to have been common in Gerarde’s time, 
for he mentions one place only where it might be found. “It groweth,” he 
says, “in Yorkshire, in a place called the Hooke, neere unto a. close, called 
the Cow-pasture, from whence I had these plants, which doe grow in my 
garden, very goodly to behold, for the decking up of houses and gardens.” 
The old herbalist describes it as a “ goodly and stately plant, having leaves 
like the greatest willow, or ozier. The branches,” he says, ‘come out of the 
ground in great number, growing to the height of sixe foote, garnished with 
brave flowers of greate beautie, consisting of fower leaves apiece, of an orient 
purple colour.” The variety so common in gardens, often, by its profusion 
there, occasions much trouble to the gardener, not so much by the seed 
which it produces, as the roots which creep to a great distance, and take a 
very firm hold of the soil; and if by chance the common form of the plant 
is introduced, as it often is, instead of the variety, it is far worse, as this 
bears seeds in abundance, and as each seed has a little silky feather attached 
to it, it wafts itself away over garden and shrubbery during August and 
September, and comes up in profusion in the following April. This plant. 
is from four to six feet in height, bearing showy rose-purple flowers in 
August ; its stem and flower-stalk are much tinged with lilac. It is 
called by gardeners French Willow, and in France one of its common names 
is Laurier de St. Antoine, after St. Anthony, the first founder of monastic 
institutions. 

Rare as this plant is on the English landscape, yet in some countries 
towards the north of Europe, it, by its profusion and bright colour, gives 
during its season a characteristic feature to the landscape. The border of 
the lake near Tornea is described as beautified during summer with large 
masses of this plant, which towers over the brink of the water, displaying 
everywhere the most gaudy garlands, even on spots where vegetation in 
general seems dwarfed and barren. In Kamtschatka, this and other 
Epilobiums are exceedingly abundant, and mingle with most showy and 
brilliant species of groundsel (Senecio), to beautify large tracts of land. Both 
plants contribute greatly to the physiognomy of the landscape, for the 
groundsel plants, as tall as a man, and laden with flowers, frequently cover 
the meadows with a fine yellow colour ; while a splendid red tint is given 
to wood-sides and rivers by the Willow-herb. 

Both the English and scientific names of this genus are very appropriate. 
Several of the larger species, before coming into flower, closely resemble the 
rods of a willow in the first year of their growth, only that they are 
herbaceous instead of woody. The name Lpilobiwm describes with much 
accuracy the position of the petals: ep, on, lobos, the long pod-like seed- 
vessel, which at first sight might be taken for a flower-stalk. It is quad- 


ROSE BAY WILLOW HERB 
Epilebram angustifolium 

GREAT HAIRY W 
I hirsetom 

SMALL FLOWERKD HATRY Wl 
I parvif lorum 

BROAD SMOOTH LEAVED WH 


P. montanvra 


cs) 


ALPINE WH 
E, alpina 


Pl, 7. 


PALE SMOOTH-lL Y 


SQUARE STALKED 


VH 


[.. roseum 
WH 


N.tetragonum 


NARROW LEAVED MARSH WII 


CHICKWIED: 1, 


W.H 


E pa lustre 


[ alsinifoliam 


— se ll 
; ™ reer ie lk - . we = be a 
; ol aye & en 


WILLOW-HERB TRIBE 3 


rangular in form, opening by four valves, and if when ripe it be carefully 
opened on one side, the seeds with their silky appendages burst from their 
prison. 

This and some other of the species are well fitted for planting in 
shrubberies, as they are uninjured by the shade and frequent dripping of 
trees, and they thrive well in city gardens, unhurt by smoke. The leaves 
and stems of the Bay Willow afford a decoction, which is said to cause 
intoxication, and it is added to the fermented drink which the Kamtschatdales 
procure from the cow-parsnip. The pith has, when dried, a sweet flavour, 
and both ale and vinegar are commonly made from it in the north of Europe ; 
while the young shoots both of this and some other species are, when 
dressed, a good and wholesome substitute for asparagus. Goats are said to 
be very fond of the plant, and both cows and sheep will eat it. The wool of 
the seeds, mixed with fur or down, has been manufactured into stockings, 
and into some kind of fabric intended for dresses, but this was too fragile to 
be of much use. The French call the Willow-herb, L’Epilobe & épi and Osier 
Fleurt, and the Germans, Der Weiderich. Its name among the Tartars is 
Karamuk, and the Russians term it Xzpree. 


* * Flowers regular ; stamens and styles erect ; stigmas 4-cleft. 


2. Great Hairy Willow-herb (E£. /irsiitwm).—Leaves partly clasping 
the stem, narrow, oblong, serrated, downy; stem downy, much branched ; 
root creeping. Plant perennial. Our stream-sides, beautiful as they ever 
are with their rich verdure and.many flowers, receive an additional ornament 
when, during July and August, this Willow-herb grows there in profusion, 
Most of the rills which trickle among our green meadows, and the streams 
and rivers which wind their silvery way, as well as the stagnant ditches, can 
then boast this ornament in more or less abundance. Often the purple 
blossom waving at a distance, on a hot summer’s day, invites the wanderer 
to some cool sequestered spot, where he may feel as Chaucer did in such a 
scene :— 


‘* And the river which that I sate upon, 
It maden siche a noise as it ron, 
Accordant with the birdis armony, 
Methought it was the best melody 
That mighten bin y’ hearde of any man.” 


The stems of this Willow-herb are much branched, so that the plant has 
somewhat the appearance of a shrub. The foliage, like most downy foliage, 
is of a greyish-green tint, and the large blossoms are reddish-purple. ‘They 
have a very pleasant odour, like that of cooked fruit, hence a common 
country name for the flower is “codlins and cream.” It never grows on a 
dry soil, but on river-brinks, and the sides of ditches. 

3. Small-flowered Hairy Willow-herb (#. parviflérum).—Leaves 
sessile, lance-shaped, downy, and toothed ; stem nearly unbranched, generally 
downy, but sometimes smooth. Plant perennial. This species has flowers 
of less size than the last, and is altogether a smaller plant ; it is easily dis- 
tinguished from it by its stem being branched only at the upper part; its 
stolons, too, afford a marked character, as they are not nearly so fleshy. It 

1—2 


4 ONAGRARIAG 


grows usually to a height of between a foot and three feet, and has, in July 
and August, flowers of a purplish-red colour. It is very common on moist 
lands. 

4. Spear-leaved Willow-herb (EL. lanceoliitum).—Leaves stalked, lance- 
shaped, irregularly toothed ; stem obtusely angled ; stigma slightly lobed ; 
root fibrous and perennial. This rare species has been found near Tintern, 
Monmouthshire, in the neighbourhood of Bristol, and in various places 
ranging from Surrey to Cornwall. The flowers, though small, are numerous, 
of a pale rosy tint, and appearing from July to October. It is fond of 
rather stony ground, especially when accompanied by moisture. 

5. Broad Smooth-leaved Willow-herb (Z. montanum).—Leaves 
egg-shaped, acute, smooth, toothed, rounded at the base, the lower ones 
shortly stalked ; stem slender, rounded, sometimes slightly downy. Plant 
perennial. This species grows commonly on dry places, as on shady hills 
and banks, and is often to be seen on the cottage-roof. It is a small and 
unattractive plant, its flowers being rarely fully expanded. They are of a 
purplish rose-colour, and of small size, though slightly larger than these of 
the next species. They are produced in June and July. 


* * * Flowers reqular ; stamens erect ; stigma clubbed, not 4-cleft. 


6. Pale Smooth-leaved Willow-herb (£. résewm).—Leaves on stalks, 
smooth, egg-shaped, finely toothed ; stem erect, imperfectly 4-angled ; stigma 
undivided, or slightly lobed. Plant perennial. This Willow-herb is local, 
occurring more frequently in the south than in the north, near water, or in 
hedges and copses. It has very small rose-coloured flowers in July and August. 

7. Square-stalked Willow-herb (EH. tetragénwm).— Leaves lance- 
shaped, sessile, and slightly toothed ; stem with two, three, or four angles ; 
stigma undivided. The small rose-coloured flowers of this species appear in 
July and August, and are not conspicuous, though the plant would, after 
flowering, attract attention by its long pod-like seed-vessels. Its stems are 
nearly smooth, and it is distinguished from the last species both by the more 
distinct angles of the stem, and by its narrower leaves without stalks. It is 
a very common plant in wet places; its stem is about one or two feet high, 
and it is in flower during June and July. The most common form of this 
produces its stolons in summer, and they have the leaves in scattered, 
opposite pairs; this form is also known as £. obscurum. The less frequent 
typical form has autumnal stolons, with leaves forming a rosette. 

8. Narrow-leaved Marsh Willow-herb (EZ. palistre). — Leaves 
narrowly lance-shaped, entire, or toothed ; stem rounded, erect, and nearly 
smooth ; flower-buds nodding ; root-stock with thread-like scions, which pro- 
duce scaly buds in autumn. Perennial. This species has minute rose-coloured 
flowers in July and August. Its stem is from sixteen to eighteen inches high, 
and has often two downy lines on opposite sides. It grows in bogs, and 
near ditches and pools. 

9. Chickweed-leaved Willow-herb (E. alsinifolium).—Leaves egg- 
shaped and pointed, very thin, smooth, and nearly sessile, the upper ones 
toothed, the lower entire; stem round. Plant perennial. This is a moun- 


WILLOW-HERB TRIBE 5 


tainous plant, frequent on moist places of Scottish mountains, and in Durham 
and Westmoreland, having a few purplish-red flowers a third of an inch 
across ; these appear in July. Its stem throws out slender suckers, with 
here and there a leaf upon them. It may be known at a glance from the 
other species, by its thin, flagging foliage. 

10. Alpine Willow-herb (£. alpinum).—Leaves oval and blunt, on 
short foot-stalks, nearly entire; stems somewhat smooth. Plant perennial. 
This, too, is a plant of mountainous regions, where it grows by rills. It is 
common on all the Highland mountains, and extends south as far as 
Durham and Cumberland. In July it has two or three flowers, which droop 
while in bud, and are of bright purplish-red. It is a plant of much lower 
growth than any other species, the stem being much less than a foot in 
height. 


2. EVENING PRIMROSE (Cinothéra). 


Common Evening Primrose ((@. biénnis).— Leaves lance-shaped, 
somewhat egg-shaped, toothed; stem slightly hairy ; flowers large, sessile ; 
stamens about the length of the corolla ; capsules nearly cylindrical. Plant 
biennial. This pretty flower must be considered rather as naturalized than 
truly wild in this kingdom, neither is it at all a frequent ornament of our 
country scenery. On a few spots of sandy soil near Liverpool, on some of 
Sussex, and in many parts of Warwickshire, it grows and thrives far from 
the care of man. It is not mentioned by our earliest writers on plants ; but 
Parkinsen, who calls it the Tree Primrose of Virginia, names it in his 
“Garden of Pleasant Flowers,” which was published in 1629. It is known 
to have been first sent from Virginia to Padua, in 1619, and probably found 
its way into England at about the same period. It is a frequent garden 
flower, opening its large primrose-coloured and somewhat fragrant blossoms 
about seven in the evening, just when the summer twilight is on its way. 
Its mode of expanding is very curious. The petals are held together at the 
summit by the attached tips of the calyx. The segments of this flower-cup 
at first separate at the base, and the yellow petals may be seen peeping 
through these openings, a long time before the flower is fully blown. The 
expansion is very gradual till the blossom is freed from the confinement of 
the calyx-tips ; but when this is effected, it unfolds very quickly for a minute 
or two, and then stops ; after which it opens very gradually, spreading itself 
out quite flat. The whole of this process sometimes occupies half an hour, 
and in some instances a little sudden noise is made as it jerks the topmost 
hooks asunder. The flowers hang next day in a discoloured and flaccid 
condition on the stem, and this circumstance renders the plant less attractive, 
as usually it has little beauty till evening. It sometimes, however, varies 
from its ordinary habits, and a blossom or two may occasionally be seen fully 
open even at noonday. The French call the Evening Primrose L’Onagre ; 
and it is the Nachtkerze of the Germans, and the Tweejaarige of the Dutch. 
The Hungarians call it Viola. It was formerly termed Onagra, the “ass 
food,” by botanists ; and its name was changed to a word signifying wine- 
trap, because the roots have been used as incentives to wine-drinking, and 
were formerly eaten after dinner, as olives are at the present day. The roots, 


6 ONAGRARILAE 


as well as those of several other species of (Znothera, contain much nutriment, 
and the root-stock is almost as good as the potato. Perhaps we owe some 
of the wild plants which occur on our landscape to the former cultivation of 
the flower for the sake of these root-stocks, which were once much valued, 
and which would probably have retained their place at the modern table, 
had not the potato become so general and accessible. They still, in some 
countries, form a common article of food. 

The Evening Primrose grows to the height of two or three feet, beginning 
to flower about July. The uppermost blossoms expand first, and there is a 
constant succession of pale yellow flowers, till the end of autumn. Many of 
the garden species are much larger and handsomer than this. (/nothera is 
quite an American genus, all but one (Tasmanian) member of this family 
having been brought from the New World. 


3. ISNARDIA. 


Marsh Isnardia (J. paliistris).—Leaves opposite, egg-shaped, acute, 
and stalked; stem procumbent, rooting, and smooth ; flowers solitary and 
axillary ; capsule 4-angled. Plant annual. This little herb has stems about 
six or eight inches long, and flowers which have pistils and stamens, but 
which are destitute of petals. It is very rare, having been found in a pool 
at Buxstead, in Sussex, and on Petersfield Heath, in Surrey, where it occurred 
in abundance. It also grows near Brockenhurst, in Hampshire, and in Jersey. 
It was formerly recorded as a British plant, but was again lost in this king- 
dom, thougk known as a plant of various parts of Europe and America, as 
far south as Mexico. Mr. Borrer, in 1827, rediscovered it in Sussex. Some 
authors call it Ludwigia palustris. 


4, ENCHANTER’S NIGHTSHADE (Circea). 


1. Common Enchanter’s Nightshade (C. lutetidna).—Leaves egg- 
shaped, tapering to a point, toothed ; bracts none; stem erect, downy ; calyx 
hairy ; root perennial. This is a very common plant in lanes where the 
thick bushes or high trees cast a deep shadow, and in shrubberies, woods, 
and gardens. The stem is about a foot or a foot and a half high ; and the 
dark green leaves, somewhat heart-shaped at the base, are very large in pro- 
portion to the blossoms. It is very troublesome in damp gardens, on account 
of its strong creeping roots; and the two-petalled flowers are too small to 
render the plant ornamental in any situation. They appear in June and 
July, are white or pale rose-colour, with pink stamens, and are destitute of 
odour. 

The genus Circwa, though named after the enchantress Circe, does not 
appear ever to have been used in enchantments, and it has no active properties 
either of a useful or deleterious kind. Some writers think that the name 
was given because many of the dark shady nooks in which it grows are such 
places as would be chosen for incantations by the pretender to magic, in 
order that their gloom might affect the imagination of his victims. Boerhaave 
ingeniously suggested that the fruit, which is clothed with hooked bristles, 
laying hold of unwary passengers, and clinging to them, might, to him who 


al EVENING PRIMROSE 3 ENCHANTERS NIGHTSHADE 


(Enothera biennis Cirexea lutetiana 
MARSH ISNARDTA 4 ALPINE E WN 


Isnardia palustris C alpina 


Pl. 79. 


WILLOW-HERB TRIBE | é 


named the plant, have been suggestive of the practices of the fabled Circe, 
who drew the unguarded into her toils ; but neither notion seems probable, 
and the origin of the name is involved in mystery. The French call the 
plant La Circée; the Germans, Das Hexenkraut ; the Dutch term it Stevens- 
kruid. The ancient Greeks had a plant which they called Circea. Our 
common plant is one much used by the leaf-cutter bees in the construction 
of their cells. Everyone observant of garden flowers must have seen how 
often little semicircular pieces are neatly cut out of the leaves of the garden 
roses ; and the leaves of several wild flowers are subject to the same depreda- 
tions. The perennial mercury, three species of willow, the sweet briar and 
dog rose, the barren strawberry, and our Enchanter’s Nightshade, ave 
among the wild plants chiefly selected ; while, in the garden, the Provence, 
Frankfort, and monthly roses are sought by these insects, that they may 
hang their cells with the green tapestry taken from the foliage. Baxter tells 
us that the caterpillar of the elephant hawk-moth (Chwrocampa elpenor), which 
feeds chiefly on the water bed-straw (Galiwn palustre), sometimes regales 
itself also on the Enchanter’s Nightshade. 

2. Alpine Enchanter’s Nightshade (C. alpina).—Leaves heart- 
shaped, toothed, nearly smooth; stem ascending, nearly smooth. Root 
perennial. This species much resembles the last, but is smaller, and less 
branched. It is found in woods, thickets, and stony places, especially near 
the lakes in the north of England and Scotland. Its flowers occur in 
July and August. Its leaves are remarkable for their thin and delicate 
texture. Some botanists describe a third species as C. intermedia, which in 
some specimens appears to be a variety of the first of the species, in others of 
the last. 


Order XXVIII. HALORAGEA—MARE’S-TAIL TRIBE. 


Calyx tube adhering to the ovary, and either expanding into three or 
four minute lobes, or forming simply a rim; petals either minute, and 
placed at the mouth of the calyx, or wanting; stamens either equalling the 
petals in number, or twice as many, or, when petals are wanting, one or 
two in number ; ovary with one or more cells ; stigmas equal in number to 
the cells of the ovary ; capsule not opening; seeds solitary, pendulous. 
The order consists of herbaceous plants of little beauty, and possessing no 
important properties. In several species the stamens and pistils are in separate 
flowers. 

1. Mare’s-rarn (Hippiris).—Calyx forming a minute, indistinctly 2-lobed 
rim to the ovary ; petals 0; stamen 1; style 1; seed 1, nut-like. Name in 
Greek signifying a horse’s tail. 

2. WaTER MiFort (Myriophyllum).—Stamens and pistils in separate 
flowers, but on the same plant ; calyx 4-parted ; petals 2 or 4 ; stamens 2 to 8; 
styles 4; fruit of 4 nut-like seeds. Name from the Greek myrios, ten thou- 
sand, and phyllon, a leaf, from its numerous leaves. 

3. WATER STARWORT (Callétriche).—Flowers without calyx or petals, often 
with 2 bracts at their base ; stamen 1 ; anther 1-celled ; styles 2; ovaries 2, 


8 HALORAGEAL 


each 2-lobed; fruit of four 1-seeded carpels. Name in Greek signifying 
beautiful hair, from the hair-like roots. 


1. Mare’s-raiL (Hippiiris). 


Common Mare’s-tail (H. vulgdris).—Leaves linear and whorled ; stem 
erect, jointed, without branches. Plant perennial. This singular plant would 
not fail to attract notice when abundant, as it often is in ponds and ditches. 
It grows frequently also on the borders of slow streams, especially such as have 
a gravelly base. It is tall and slender, rising ten or twelve inches above the 
water, and very well deserving its common French name of Pin deau, or the 
no less expressive German one of Schaftholm. The flowers are inconspicuous, 
small and green, appearing in May and June close to the stem, in the angles 
which it forms with the short whorled leaves. This is remarkable as being 
one of the simplest of herbaceous plants, sometimes having a mere rim for its 
calyx, having no petals, and but one stamen, one pistil, and one seed. When 
the plant has flowered it sinks down and dies, and its stems and leaves form 
a mass at the bottom of the water. 

Like many another aquatic plant, the Mare’s-tail has its uses, not alone 
to water animals, as the freshwater snails and insects, not only to the wild 
ducks and water-fowls which hail it as a welcome repast, but also to man. 
It renders the neighbourhood of stagnant water less prejudicial to human 
health, by absorbing a great quantity of noxious gas, thus serving to purify 
an atmosphere rendered putrid by the exhalations of the pool. In deep 
water it attains considerable luxuriance, and is sometimes three feet in height. 

There is no other plant with which the Mare’s-tail could possibly be con- 
founded, save some of the horse-tails, those allies of the ferns, and many of 
which abound in moist places. It is, however, essentially distinct, for the 
horse-tails have no flowers, and bear their fructification in cones or catkins at 
the tops of their stems or branches. Their leaves, too, are longer and more 
rigid, those of this herb being short and clear, with a thick strong vein running 
up the centre. The Dutch call this plant Kuftestail, and the Italians term it 
Ippuride. 

2. WaTER Miuroru (Myriophylluni). 


1. Whorled Water Milfoil (J. verticilldtum).—Flowers all whorled, 
having bracts at their base, cut into slender segments, and longer than the 
flowers. Plant perennial. This aquatic can boast no brightness of corolla, its 
greenish petals being too small to attract observation. It is, however, very 
pretty in its greenness, and in the graceful form and movement of its feathery 
leaf-like bracts, which lie like green threads in the water, and are swept down- 
wards if perchance a wind stirs up acurrent in the still pool. The plant well 
merits its name of Myriad-leaf, as well as its German name of Venderball. 
The French call it Volant d’cau, and the Dutch Vederkruid. The Milfoil is 
common in many of the pools and ditches of Europe; and this species is 
frequent in such places throughout England and Wales. Mr. Backhouse 
found a Milfoil growing with some of the pond-weeds (Potamogeton) in the 
waters of New South Wales, and believed it to be identical with the English 
species. 


a 


2 


MA RES TALL 4, ALTERNATE FLOWERED W. 
Hiippuris valgaris M. alterniflorum 
WHORLED WATER - “MITFOTL, a WATER STAR-WORI, 
Myriophyltom verticillatum . Calhtmche verna 
SPIKED W. M 6 PEDUNCULATED W. S. W 
M. spicatum C. -peduncolata 


Hii AUTUMNAL W, S. Ww 
C. autumnalis 


Pl, 80. 


MARE’S-TAIL TRIBE 9 


2. Spiked Water Milfoil (MZ. spicdtum).—Flowers whorled, longer than 
the bracts at their base, which form an interrupted leafless spike ; stem slender 
and branched. Plant perennial. This is a common plant in standing pools, 
where it forms entangling masses by its slender stem and branches, which, 
when we take them from the water and shake them, drop numerous little 
living creatures, that have evidently found a home amid the leaves and bracts. 
The whole plant looks very green and pretty, as it lies in the water, where it 
floats below the surface, save when in July and August its spikes of minute 
greenish flowers rise just above the pool. These spikes are from three to five 
inches long, and the leaves, which are four in a whorl, are cut into slender 
segments. 

3. Alternate-flowered Milfoil (W/. alterniflérwm). — Barren flowers 
arranged alternately on a short leafless spike; fertile flowers about three 
together, in the axils of the leaves at its base ; spikes drooping when in bud. 
Plant perennial. This rare species occurs in a few places in England and 
Scotland in ponds and ditches, its small green flowers appearing from May to 
August. It is very similar to the last species, but is more slender, and its 
flowers are less abundant. 


3. WATER STARWORT (Callitriche). 


1. Vernal Water Starwort (C. vérna).—Leaves in pairs, united at the 
base ; flowers in the axils of the leaves, usually containing one stamen or one 
pistil only, but occasionally both organs ; carpels bluntly keeled at the back. 
Plant annual. This little Starwort is abundant in ditches, pools, and slow 
streams, everywhere, and is often probably mistaken by those little familiar 
with plants, for some species of bedstraw (Gdlium). Its shoots are most 
truly starry, the leaves being crowded on the top of the slender stem, and 
often the plant when in masses forms thick tufts like green cushions in the 
pools lying among the grass of marshy lands. The verdure is of emerald 
hue, and numerous little white hair-like shining roots proceed from the joints 
of the stem, forming a characteristic feature of the Starwort. The foliage is 
submersed, but the stamens of the little green flowers in June and July rise 
just above the surface of the water. The Starwort is called by the French La 
Callitric, and by the Germans Wassersten. It is the Callitrica of the Italians, — 
and the Sterrekruid of the Dutch. Several varieties or sub-species are described, 
one having the lobes of the fruit slightly keeled, another with the lobes 
slightly winged at the back. 

2. Pedunculated Water Starwort (C. pedunculdta). — Fruit-stalks 
without bracts at the base; fruit 4-sided, each lobe bluntly keeled at the 
back. Plant annual. This rare species is very nearly allied to the last, of 
which it is probably a sub-species. It is found in ditches in Sussex, and some 
other English counties, as well as in Wales, producing its inconspicuous flowers 
somewhat earlier than C. verna. 

3. Autumnal Water Starwort (C. autwmnilis),—Fruit-stalks very 
short, without bracts ; fruit somewhat 4-sided, each lobe winged at the back. 
Plant annual. This species occurs about London, in various lakes from 
Scotland to Devonshire, and in Ireland. It flowers in June and July. A 
variety known as C. truncata is distinguished by having its fruit keeled. 

11.—2 


10 CERATOPHYLLEA.—_HORNWORT TRIBE 


Order XXIX. CERATOPHYLLEA.—HORNWORT TRIBE. 


Stamens and pistils in separate flowers, but on the same plant; calyx many 
parted ; corolla none ; stamens 12—20, without filaments ; anthers 2-pointed ; 
ovary 1-celled; style curved; seed-vessel nut-like, 1-seeded, not opening. 
This is an aquatic order, containing only the genus Hornwort, which is very 
distinct from any other known plant. The affinities of this order have been 
much disputed by botanists. 

Hornwort (Ceratophyllum).—Characters those of the order. Name in 
Greek signifying horn-leaved. 


Hornwort (Ceratophyllum). 


1. Common Hornwort (C. demérsum).—Fruit armed with two thorns 
near the base, and terminated by the curved style. Plant perennial. Our 
illustration will remind all accustomed to roam in the country of a plant 
which they often see lying in slow streams and ditches. This Hornwort 
grows quite under the water, and being unlike most other plants in the cone- 
like form which its mass of crowded leaves often assumes, it will hardly fail 
to be noticed, though no bright corolla adds grace to its verdure. The 
whorled leaves, rigid as bristles, are two or three times forked, and somewhat 
serrated ; they are often also inflated and jointed. The green flowers grow 
in whorls in the axils of the leaves. The plant has no known uses, except 
that it aids with other aquatic vegetation in purifying the water, by absorb- 
ing carbonic acid and giving off oxygen. Some varieties of this plant have, 
by various botanists, been described as species; in one, the spines of the 
fruit are long, rigid, and rounded; in a second, they are also long but 
flattened, and winged at the base ; a third variety has no spines on its fruit, 
but two tubercles at its base. The first of these is most common in this 
country. 

2. Unarmed Hornwort (C. submérsum).—Fruit without either spines 
or tubercles, and ending with the very short styles. Plant perennial. This 
species much resembles the last, and can be known from it only by the 
character of its fruit. It is rare, being found only in the pools and ditches 
of the south of England, its flowers appearing in June and July. It is prob- 
ably only a sub-species of C. demerswin. 


Order XXX. LYTHRARIA—LOOSESTRIFE TRIBE. 


Calyx of one piece, often tubular, 3 to 6-parted, sometimes with inter- 
mediate teeth ; petals inserted between the outer divisions of the calyx, soon 
falling off; stamens springing from the tube of the calyx, within the petals, 
and either equalling them in number, or twice, thrice, or four times as many ; 
ovary 2 to 6-celled ; style single ; capsule many-seeded, covered by the calyx, 
but not united to it. This order consists chiefly of herbaceous plants, having 
mostly four-sided stems, and opposite leaves. Many of the species are 
astringent, and several are used by dyers. The celebrated Henna or Al 
hanneh of the Arabs is furnished by a plant of this order, the Lawsonia alba. 
‘The paste made of its pounded leaves is used by the Egyptians, Arabs, and 


LYTHRARIA—LOOSESTRIFE TRIBE 11 


Turks to impart a yellowish red hue to their nails. The practice is of high 
antiquity, for the nails of the mummies have evidently received this tinge. 

1. PurPLE LOoosEstriFE (Lythrum).—Calyx cylindrical, with 8 to 12 
divisions, alternately smaller ; petals 4 to 6; stamens 8 to 12; style thread- 
like. Named from the Greek lythron, blood, from the hue of the flowers. 

2. WATER PURSLANE (Péplis). — Calyx bell-shaped, with 12 divisions, 
alternately smaller ; petals 6, minute, soon falling off ; stamens 6 ; style very 
short. Name of Greek origin, and anciently given to another plant. 


1, PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE (Lythrum). 


1. Purple Loosestrife (L. salicéria).—Leaves opposite, or about three 
in a whorl, long and narrow, heart-shaped at the base; flowers whorled, and 
forming a leafy spike. Plant perennial. This Loosestrife is among the 
handsomest of our native flowers, rivalling the foxglove and viper’s bugloss 
in beauty. Its blossoms appear in June and July, forming tall tapering 
spikes, sometimes a foot long, on a stem which is from two to four feet in 
height. The colour is of rich purplish red, and when these gay pyramids 
rise up, as they often do, above the sedges, and rushes, and willow boughs 
which fringe the water, they render the margin most beautiful, and may be 
seen far away over the landscape. The plant is called by several country 
names, as Grass-poly, Purple Grass, and Willow Lythrum. It is in many 
counties called Long Purples; and Clare in several of his poems alludes to 
it under that name :— 

‘* As shadowy April's suns and showers would pass, 
And summer’s wild profusion plenteous grew, 
Hiding the spring-flowers in long weeds and grass, 

What meads and copses would I wander through, 
When on the water oped the lily buds, 
And fine Long Purples shadowed in the lake, 


When purple bugles peeped in the woods 
"Neath darkest shades that boughs and leaves could make.” 


Additional interest has been given to this species in recent years by the 
discovery that the flowers are “ trimorphic”—that is, three separate plants 
may yield us flowers differing from each other in the length of their style ; 
but really there are six forms. No. 1 may have a long style accompanied ° 
by stamens of medium length and yellow pollen grains of medium size. 
No. 2 will also have a long style, but its stamens will be short and its yellow 
pollen grains smaller than those of No. 1. No. 3 has a style of medium 
length, long stamens and large grains of green pollen. No. 4, medium style, 
short stamens, and small yellow pollen. No. 5, a short style, long stamens 
and large green pollen. No. 6, a short style, medium stamens and medium 
yellow pollen. These differences have very direct relation to the fertiliza- 
tion of the seed-eggs by the agency of bees, the pollen of one flower being 
useless for the fertilization of its own seeds. The pollen grains of Nos. 2 
and 3, for instance, will only serve for fertilizing the short-styled Nos. 5 
and 6, and thereby a healthy cross between individuals of the same species 
is assured. 

This Loosestrife grows in all parts of this kingdom, and is very general 
on the Continent. It occurs in great profusion in the streams and ditches 

99 


a ~_ 


12 LYTHRARLZ—LOOSESTRIFE TRIBE 


about Brussels, especially near Laerken, the king’s country palace. The 
French, Italians, and Spaniards call it Salicaire ; the Germans term it brawne 
weiderich ; the Dutch, Partyke; and the Russians, Plakun. The streams 
about Australia are as gay in summer with its crimson blooms as are our 
own watersides ; and the same, or a very similar species, blooms on the 
borders of lakes in Mexico. In the latter country several species of Lythrum 
are found, and they are very generally used as applications to wounds. Our 
own Grass-poly is very astringent and tonic, and has been recommended by 
De Haen and other continental physicians for intermittent fevers. Though 
it has long been celebrated in Ireland for its remedial uses, it is rarely pre- 
scribed in England by regular practitioners. Its leaves contain tannin, and 
have been used with success in the preparation of leather. In India the 
flowers of the Lythrum hunterii are mixed with the blossoms of the Morinda, 
and are then called Dhawry, and commonly used as a dye. 

2. Hyssop-leaved Purple Loosestrife (L. hyssopifélium).—Leaves 
mostly alternate, linear-lanceolate, blunt ; flowers axillary, solitary ; bracts 2, 
very small, and awl-shaped ; stamens about 6. Plant annual. ‘This species 
is so unlike the last in its general appearance, that only the botanist would 
perceive the affinity of the two. It is a lowly plant, about four or five inches 
high, having a few little blossoms growing singly between the leaves and 
stem. They are of a dull purplish-lilac colour, expanding in July. This 
may occasionally be seen growing with the taller Loosestrife at the edge of 
the water, but is more likely to be found in bogs or among the grass of 
woods which have standing pools among their trees. It is not anywhere a 
common flower, but the author found it some years since in some profusion 
in Eridge woods, near Tunbridge Wells, and it has been recorded from Herts, 
Cambs, Northants, Norfolk, and Cornwall. 


2. WATER-PURSLANE (Péplis). 


Common Water-Purslane (P. pértula).— Leaves inversely egeg- 
shaped ; flowers solitary. Plant annual. Those who were intent on gather- 
ing a wild nosegay would leave this little aquatic untouched, or probably 
pass it by unnoticed. It grows either on moist lands or on places sometimes 
overflowed by water, having often a reddish tinge on its stems and leaves. 
It is a lowly creeping plant, and not unfrequent ; its stems being from four 
to six inches long, with few branches. Its small green flowers, often without 
petals, appear in July and August. 


Order XXXI. TAMARISCINEA—TAMARISK TRIBE. 


Sepals 4—5, overlapping when in bud, remaining after the corolla is 
withered ; petals 4—5 from the base of the calyx; stamens either equal to 
the petals in number, or twice as many, distinct or united by their filaments ; 
ovary not combined with the calyx; styles 3; capsule 3-valved, 1-celled, 
containing many seeds, which have downy tufts at the extremity. The 
plants of this order are mostly shrubs, with long slender branches and small 
scale-like leaves. They are very numerous on the shores of the Mediterranean, 


L SPIKED PURPLE LOOSF STRIPE 3 WATER. PURSLANE 


Lythram salicarna Pephs portula 


2. HYSSOP LEAVED Pi, 1 ENGLISH TAMARTSK 
18 hyssopfohum [Tamarix Gallica 
a RED BERRIED BRIONY 


Bryoma choica 


Pl. 81, 


TAMARISCINEAA—TAMARISK TRIBE 13 


thriving well by the sea or on the saline soils of deserts. The bark is 
astringent, and many species are remarkable for the large quantity of sulphate 
of soda afforded by their ashes. 

TAMARISK (Zdmariz).—Calyx 5-parted; petals 5; stamens 5 or 10; 
stigmas feathery. Named from the 'Tamarisci, the people who inhabited the 
banks of the Tamaris, now the Tambra, in Spain, where this plant is in great 
abundance. 

TAMARISK (Tdmariz). 


Common Tamarisk (7. gallica).—Leaves quite smooth, somewhat 
narrowed at the base ; flower-buds egg-shaped ; capsule rounded at the base 
and narrowed upwards. Plant perennial. This pretty shrub is very orna- 
mental to many parts of our coast, with its rich deep verdure, and its 
delicate red branches clothed, in July, with elegant spikes of pale rose- 
coloured flowers. It is very common in seaside gardens, and in many places 
by the sea grows in profusion, without culture, on rocks, cliffs, and sandy 
soils. Truly wild, however, the plant is not, in any part of the kingdom ; 
for although it is abundant in some places, as at Hastings and Sandgate, it 
was doubtless originally planted there. It is often said to be wild in 
Cornwall, as Tamarisk shrubs abound about the Lizard and along the south 
coast, having probably been brought thither from the opposite coast of 
France. The plant is said to have been introduced into the Lizard district 
by a carter, who, having lost his whip, gathered one of the long flexible 
branches of the Tamarisk at St. Michael’s Mount, which, at the conclusion 
of his journey, he stuck into the ground, where it grew and flourished. Nor 
is this an unlikely mode of its propagation, for it grows from cuttings as 
freely as the willow. 

Fuller, in his ‘“ Worthies of England,” remarks :—‘The Tamarisk was 
first brought over by Bishop Grindal out of Switzerland, where he was an 
exile under Queen Mary, and planted in his garden at Fulham, where the 
soil, being moist and fenny, well complied with the nature of this plant ; yet 
it groweth not up to be timber, as in Arabia, though often to that substance 
that cups of great size are made thereof.” Richard Hakluyt also says that 
in his time the plant had so increased that there were thousands of the trees 
in this country, and adds, “Many people have received great health by this 
plant.” This writer published his work in 1582. In those days the cup 
made of Tamarisk was thought to improve the flavour of ale; the spit made 
of its wood imparted an excellence to the meat roasted upon it ; and its use 
was considered so beneficial to persons afflicted with diseases of the spleen, 
that physicians ordered patients to eat from dishes made of Tamarisk wood. 
It also had other domestic uses, as Browne in his “ Pastorals ” refers to it— 

‘* Amongst the rest, the Tamarisk there stood, 
For housewives’ besoms onely knowne most good.” 
And Pliny mentions its use for brooms by the Romans. Dioscorides praised 
it as a cure for every disease. It is the Myrica of the Greeks and Romans ; 
and to the reader of the Classics is connected with many poetic associations. 
‘It is so referred to,” says Mr. Baxter, “in the Pastorals of Theocritus and 
Virgil, and many times in the Eclogues of the latter poet ; Ovid also names 


14 TAMARISCINEZ—TAMARISK TRIBE 


it in several poems.” Homer mentions it as the tree against which Achilles 
laid his spear before he rushed into the Xanthus to pursue the fleeing 
Trojans :— 
“So plunged in Xanthus, by Achilles’ force, 
Roars the resounding surge with men and horse ; 


His bloody lance the hero cast aside, 
Which spreading Tamarisks on the margin hide.” 


Iivelyn says that it was considered one of the unfortunate trees, and gives 
that as the reason why its branches were in ancient times bound around the 
head of the criminal. It is in England commonly called Sea Cypress ; but 
though its foliage somewhat resembles that of the cypress, its mode of 
growth, pale hue, and deciduous habit make it quite distinct even to the 
unscientific eye. 

The Tamarisk has associations with scenes and times even earlier than 
those of the Roman or Greek writers, for there is little doubt that it is the 
Yschel or Ashel of the Scripture. The passage rendered in our Authorized 
Version, ‘“ Now Saul abode in Gibeah, under a tree in Ramah,” is translated 
by Boothroyd, “Saul was sitting on a hill in Gibeah, under a Tamarisk-tree ” 
—a rendering thought by Dr. Kitto to be the correct one. The author 
remarks that Saul preferred holding his court under the shadow of a tree, as 
many an Oriental prince of modern days would do. This, too, is thought 
to be the tree under which Saul and his sons were buried. Almost all 
travellers in Eastern countries speak of the Tamarisk-tree as the Athel or 
Atlé of the Orientals. It is one of the very few trees which will flourish 
and attain a good size in the soil of the desert. Large Tamarisks, called 
Asul, are found all about Palestine, not graceful and slender as are those 
of our country, but tall and sturdy as oaks. The exact species of Eastern ~ 
Tamarisks are not ascertained; but if not mere varieties of our English 
species, they are very nearly allied to it, and all have many points of 
similarity. The tree has long been highly prized by the Arabs for the 
medicinal uses of the galls which grow on its branches. ‘The Tamarisk was 
called Tourfa by Avicenna, and its astringent galls are praised in his works ; 
they are also used in dyeing. In Egypt these trees are as large as oaks. 
Sonnini tells us that not a village of Lower Egypt is without its Atleés. 
“There is,” says this writer, ‘no other tree in the land which can in any 
degree be termed common. It furnishes the timber for mechanical pur- 
poses, and wood for fuel. Hence the Egyptians say, ‘the world would go 
badly with them if Atlés were to fail.’” They also make their bowls and 
drinking-cups of its wood. 

Another interesting association connected with the Tamarisk is, that it is 
the only tree now found growing amid the ruins of Babylon. Ker Porter 
thought that he discovered some traces of the celebrated hanging-gardens, 
and on an artificial mound there stood a tree which the Arabs called Athela. 
It was hollow with age, and its branches bending downward gave to it the 
aspect of a weeping willow. The boughs were graceful and richly verdant, 
though its large trunk was old and rugged. Some travellers have described 
this lonely relic of the ancient grandeur—this solitary tree—as a cedar, 
others as a willow ; but Aucher, in 1835, gathered some specimens which he 


CUCURBITACEAi—GOURD TRIBE 15 


preserved, and which were considered by botanists to be the Tamarix pycno- 
carpus. ‘The Arabs regard this tree as sacred, because, after the battle of 
Hillah, the Caliph Ali reposed under its shade. It is thought to be as old 
as the time of Herodotus, B.c. 440. 

Our Tamariz gallica is a native of most of the countries of southern 
Europe, of Asia Minor, Tartary, Japan, Barbary, and Arabia, as well as of 
many parts of Africa; and some other species, as the Eastern Tamarisk 
(7. orientalis), are also common in these lands. A variety of our Sea-side 
Tamarisk affords, according to Ehrenberg, the manna of Mount Sinai. This 
manna, as it is called, because it is supposed to resemble the manna of the 
Scriptures, drops during the month of June from the branches and twigs 
beneath the tree, where it coagulates. If left till after sunrise it dissolves, 
and is lost. The Arabs, therefore, collect it before dawn. It is a sweet and 
pleasant substance, which the Arabs prize greatly, and pour over their bread 
as if it were honey. Falling in small quantities, it is a very costly luxury. 
This manna probably no more resembles the “ Bread of Heaven,” given in 
the wilderness, than does the substance called manna in this country, and 
sold by the druggists for medicinal purposes. This is the product of an 
ash-tree, Ornus europea. 


Order XXXII. CUCURBITACEA*—GOURD TRIBE. 


Stamens and pistils often in separate flowers, either on the same plant or 
on different plants; calyx 5-toothed, connected with the corolla; corolla 
often scarcely to be distinguished from the calyx; stamens 5, more or less 
united ; anthers twisted ; ovary imperfectly 3-celled ; style short; stigmas 
lobed ; fruit more or less succulent ; seeds flat, in a juicy arillus, or skin. 

The Gourd Tribe consists of a large number of important climbing 
herbaceous plants, having succulent stems and tendrils. In many cases their 
medicinal properties are very violent, but some plants of the tribe produce 
valuable fruit. To this order belong the Gourds, the fruits of which are, in 
Arabia, Egypt, and other countries, converted into bowls and other articles of 
domestic use ; the Bottle-gourds (Lagenaria) seeming exactly formed for this 
purpose, being shaped like flasks, and sometimes six feet long ; when young 
they are used as spoons. The plants are of rapid growth, and the Common 
Garden Pumpkin increases so rapidly in size, that with its long shoots it 
will, in a good soil, in one season cover the eighth part of an acre. This is 
extensively cultivated in some parts of France to use in soups and fricassees. 
The Vegetable Marrow is often seen on our tables; the cool and refreshing 
Melons and Cucumbers in all their varieties afford us valuable edible fruits ; 
while in hot countries Water Melons are among the most refreshing articles 
of diet. The Germans eat the fruit of the Squash Gourd, which, from its 
shape, they term the Elector’s Hat ; and Cucumbers in Russia are deemed a 
most necessary vegetable diet. The Colocynth and Squirting Cucumber furnish 
powerful drugs ; and the plant mentioned in Scripture as the Wild Vine, 
from which the sons of the prophets gathered gourds for Elisha at Gilgal, 
is believed to be the Ass, or Wild Cucumber, a plant of this order, which is 
very bitter. As it resembles the cultivated cucumber it was apparently 


16 CUCURBITACEAt 


gathered by mistake, and its bitterness induced the men who procured it to 
consider it deleterious, bitterness in a vegetable indicating, in the ideas of 
the Hebrews, the presence of poison. Our Red-berried Bryony is the only 
British genus contained in this order. 

Bryony (Bryénia).—Stamens three ; style 3-cleft ; fruit, a globose berry, 
Name from the Greek bryo, to bud, from its rapid growth. 


Bryony (bryénia). 

Red-berried Bryony (B. diotca).—Leaves palmate, rough on both sides ; 
pistils and stamens on different plants. Plant perennial. A very pretty 
climber is this Wild Bryony in early spring, when its half-developed leaves 
are of a delicate green hue, and its unfolding shoots grey with long silvery 
hairs. But as the months advance these leaves grow out into large vine-like 
foliage, and become of a deep rich green hue, covered with thick prickly 
hairs, and the long shoots armed with branching tendrils wind their way 
along the bushes, occupying no small space in the green hedgerow :— 

‘‘The scallop'd Bryony mingling round the bowers, 
Whose fine bright leaves make up the want of flowers,” 
The blossoms, which may be seen from May to September, add little to the 
beauty of the plant, for though they are large, yet their greenish white petals, 
marked with darker veins, have nothing very attractive in appearance, and 
are also destitute of perfume, save such faint and sickly odour as might 
suggest the idea that they belonged to a poisonous plant: nor would the 
inference be altogether wrong. The root partakes of that powerful drug 
yielded by the Colocynth, and the round red berries, which are in autumn 
amongst our most beautiful wild fruits, are poisonous, while the whole plant 
abounds with a fetid and acrid juice. The root is very large and succulent, 
and to this accumulation of nutriment Linnzus attributed the quick growth 
of the Bryony. Gerarde mentions having seen one as large as a child six 
months old, weighing half a hundredweight, but this was unusually large. 
These roots were formerly much prized as a remedy for dropsy, but are not 
now administered by medical men internally, though Professor Burnett 
records that they were a few years since still sold at Covent Garden market, 
and used by the pugnacious to remove the blackness “which follows blows 
too vigorously applied in the neighbourhood of the eyes.” The root, how- 
ever should not be used even externally when in a fresh state, or it would 
blister the skin. The acrimony is partly removed by drying. The writer just 
alluded to says, “ Bryony root has also been often used, when cut in slices, 
to mix sith calumba-root, a vile adulteration, as the properties of the drugs 
are most dissimilar.” He adds, that the most serious consequences might 
ensue from its use in cases in which a tonic like the calumba is required. The 
fraud is considered by medical practitioners to have originated in the belief 
which once prevailed, that calumba was the root of Bryonia epigea, which it 
is said to resemble, and which in India is used instead of it. Our old 
herbalists praise the Bryony root as an invaluable external and internal 
remedy, though, according to their own admission, 1b was “a furious martial 
plant.” Among other ways of using it, it was commonly mace into en 


GOURD TRIBE 17 


electuary for coughs, but it must have been a most dangerous medicine, 
unless used, as it is by modern homeeopaths, in tiny globules. Culpepper— 
** As one that on his worth and knowledge doth rely 
In learned physic’s use, and skilful surgery ”— 

after recommending it for various maladies, cautiously adds, ‘“‘ When it must 
be taken inwardly it needs an abler hand to correct it than most country 
people have, therefore it is a better way for them to leave the simple alone, 
and take the compound water of it mentioned in my ‘Dispensatory,’ and 
that is far more safe, being wisely corrected.” ‘Those, however, are most 
safe who leave the plant altogether out of their list of remedies ; but country 
people still have a strange belief that vegetable medicines are never dangerous, 
forgetting that hemlock, aconite, and other plants, contain most deadly 
poison. Villagers are often so ignorant of the nature of the plants which 
they use as remedies, that the author has more than once had much difficulty 
in dissuading persons from taking most powerful and most unsafe decoctions 
of wild plants. 

This Bryony is commonly called also Wild Vine, or Wood-vine, and in 
some countries, where hops are not cultivated, it is called Wild Hop. One 
of its old names was Tetterwort. Though so common in England, it is rare 
in Scotland. It grows wild in many European countries, and is called by the 
French Bryone, or Couleavrée ; itis the Zauriibe of the Germans; the Lryone 
of the Dutch; and Brionia of the Italians; the Portuguese term it Norca 
bianca. The goat is the only animal which feeds on its foliage; but 
Dr. Withering says, that a decoction of the fresh root is an excellent medi- 
cine for horned cattle, and that it is a common practice in Norfolk to mingle 
small pieces of this root with corn in order to render their coats glossy and 
fine. Other physicians consider that it might be used medicinally with great 
advantage, as several foreign species are valuable medicines of other countries. 
The seeds of Bryonia callosa, a common plant in India, afford an excellent 
oil, much used for burning in lamps. 


Order XXXIII. PORTULACEAX—PURSLANE TRIBE. 


Calyx of 2 sepals, united at the base; petals usually 5 from the base of 
the calyx ; stamens 4 or more inserted with the petals ; ovary 1-celled ; style 
1 or 0; stigmas several ; capsule 1-celled, opening transversely, or by 3 valves ; 
seeds usually more than 1. ‘This order consists of herbs or shrubs with very 
succulent leaves and stems. The species are all innocuous, and in many cases 
edible. Portulaca sativa is the Common Purslane, and is cultivated an’ much 
liked as a vegetable in several continental countries. The Da+t-kai of Caffraria, , 
celebrated among the Hottentots for its edible roots, is a Purslane ; and Mr. 
Burchell remarks that an abundance of the Common Purslane is to be found 
everywhere on the Asbetos mountains, and that he ordered a quantity to be 
boiled for his dinner, as it rarely happened that he could convert the wild 
vegetation of that country to culinary uses, the heat rendering plants so 
tough and juiceless, that they were unfit for eating. He remarks that this 
Purslane is one of the few plants whose seeds have been scattered in various 

I1.—3 


18 PORTULACEASX—PURSLANE TRIBE 


and very different parts of the earth. The rocky hills of St. Helena are in 
the rainy season rendered verdant by this plant alone. Several species of 
the family have large and handsome flowers ; but its only native representa- 
tive in Britain is an inconspicuous plant. 

1. Bunks (Méntia).—Calyx of 2 sepals; corolla of 5 petals, 3 smaller 
than the others, and all united at the base; tube of the corolla split to the 
base ; capsule containing 3-dotted seeds. Name from Joseph de Monti, a 
botanist of Bologna. 

2. SPRING BEAUTIES (Clayténia).—Sepals 2, oval, persistent. Petals 5, 
usually clawed, and joined at the base. Stamens, 5 attached to base of 
petals. Style, 3-cleft at apex. Capsule I-celled, opening by 3 valves and 
containing a few seeds. Name from Dr. J. J. Clayton, an American botanist. 


1. Buinks (Méntia). 


Water Blinks (J. fontdna).—Leaves opposite, tapering at the base. 
Plant annual. This lowly chickweed-like plant varies much in size, but is 
always remarkable for its succulence. It flowers from June to August ; 
its small white blossoms, drooping at first, and scarcely ever expanding, 
acquired for it the name of Blinks. It is abundant in wet places throughout 
the country. Linneus, who found it in Lapland, remarks that it was a plant 
which had never come in his way before. ‘ In Kalhéden,” he says, “I found 
it particularly abundant, and I afterwards found it in West Bothnia.” The 
French call this plant La Montie ; the Germans, Die Quellenmonti. It is the 
Bronminnende montia of the Dutch. 

2. SprinG Beauty (Clayténia). 

1. Perfoliate Spring Beauty (C. perfolidta).—Root fibrous. Radical 
leaves, broad ovate, long-stalked, fleshy. Annual. The Perfoliate Claytonia 
is not indigenous; it is a plant of North-west America, which has been 
introduced to our gardens as a pot-herb, whence it has escaped and success- 
fully established itself in the wild condition outside. It sends up an un- 
branched flower stem in May, and this bears, below the cyme of small white 
{lowers, a basin formed by the junction of two stalkless leaves. It is to the 
fact that the stem passes through this basin that the specific name perfoliata 
refers. The plant is from six inches to a foot in height. 

2. Sandwort Spring Beauty (C. alsinoides).—This species has more 
slender oval radical leaves, and those on the stem are round and stalkless, 
but not united by the bases as in C. perfoliata. The flowers are larger and 
more numerous. Annual. This species has no more claim than the previous 
one to be regarded as British, but it has firmly established itself in places. 


Order XXXIV. ILLECEBRACEA:—KNOT-GRASS TRIBE, 


Sepals usually 5; petals 5, minute, inserted between the lobes of the 
calyx, sometimes wanting ; stamens varying in number, opposite the petals 
if equalling them in number ; ovary not combined with the calyx; pistils 
2—5; fruit 1-celled; opening with 3 valves, or not opening. The Knot- 
grass Tribe is composed of small shrubby or herbaceous plants, with minute 


1 


CHICKWEED 


SAND 


Montia fontana 


STRAPWORT 
Corrs giola littorahs 


GLABROUS RUPTURE-WoRT 


AHermaria slabra 


Pl. 82, 


HATRY R.W 
Hermaria hirsuta 


WHORLED KNOT- GRASS 
[llecebrum verticillat um 


FOUR-LEAVED ALL~ SEED 
Polycarpon tetraphylum 


ILLECEBRACEA—KNOT-GRASS TRIBE 19 


flowers and undivided leaves. The few British genera are mostly found in 
the southern counties of the kingdom; and the plants of this order occur 
chiefly in Southern Europe or Northern Africa. 

1. StrapworT (Corrigiola).—Sepals 5; petals 5, as long as the calyx ; 
stamens 5; stigmas 3, sessile ; fruit 1-seeded, inclosed in the calyx. Name 
signifying a little strap, from the form of the leaves. 

2. RupTURE-worT (Hernidria).—Sepals 5; petals 5, resembling barren 
filaments ; stamens 5, inserted on a fleshy ring; stigmas 2, nearly sessile ; 
fruit 1-seeded, inclosed in the calyx. Name from the ailment which it was 
supposed to cure. 

3. Knot-erass (lllécebrum).—Sepals 5, coloured, thickened, and termi- 
nating in an awl-shaped point; petals 0, or 5; stigmas 2; fruit 1-seeded, 
inclosed in the calyx. Name from the Latin ilécebra, an attraction. 

4, ALL-SEED (Polycdrpon).—Sepals 5 ; petals 5, notched ; stamens 3—5 ; 
stigmas 3, nearly sessile ; fruit 1-celled, 3-valved, many-seeded. Name from 
the word polys, many, and karpos, fruit. 


1. StRAPWORT (Corrigiola). 


Sand Strap-wort (C. littordlis)—Stem spreading, leafy ; flowers 
stalked in small clusters ; stem-leaves oblong, narrow below. Plant annual. 
This rare and pretty little Strapwort spreads itself over the ground, bearing, 
from August to December, tufts of little white flowers. It grows on Slapton 
Sands, and near the Start Point, in Devonshire ; and is found in great abun- 
dance on the banks of the Looe Pool, near Helston, in Cornwall. It is the 
Corrigiole of the French, the Lingenkraut of the Germans, the Aiempjis of the 
Dutch, and the Corrigiola of the Italians. 

2. RupTURE-WorT (Hernidria). 

Smooth Rupture-wort (H. glabra). —Stem prostrate, clothed with 
minute curved hairs ; leaves oval, narrowing towards the base, more or less 
hairy, in some cases fringed with delicate hairs ; flowers sessile, axillary. 
Plant perennial. This varies very much in some of its characters. In one 
variety the leaves are quite smooth, and in the other the leaves have some- 
times hairs on the surface, with a delicate fringe around the edges, like an-. 
eyelash. Some botanists think the latter, which grows at the Lizard, a per- 
manent distinction, and describe the plant in this condition as a different 
species, under the name of H. ciliata. The plant is sometimes said to re- 
semble wild thyme in its habit, but the flowers are green. They appear from 
July to September, either in tufts from the axils of the leaves, or the clusters 
form a crowded spike interspersed with leaves. The plant is not common, 
occurring chiefly in Cambridge, Lincoln, Norfolk and Suffolk; and in the 
western parts of Kerry, in Ireland, though nowhere in any abundance. A 
variety of a more hairy nature is by some botanists termed H. hirsuta. 
Its hairs are spreading, but in other respects it resembles the ordinary form. 
Its only British locality is near Christchurch, in Hampshire. 


3. Knot-Grass (llécebrum). 


Whorled Knot-grass (J. verticilldtum).—Leaves broadly egg-shaped, 
smooth ; stipules white, chaffy and jagged at the margin; stems slender. 
a 


20 CRASSULACEAL 


Plant perennial. This little Knot-grass, doubtless, received its English name 
from its entangling stems. ‘These have a reddish hue, and the small white 
flowers which grow around them in axillary whorls, are remarkable for their 
thick calyxes. ‘The plant is found on boggy lands and in standing pools in 
Cornwall and Devonshire. In the former county it is not uncommon. It 
flowers from July to September. One of its old names was Whitlow-grass, 
from a fancied efficacy in its cure of whitlows. The Germans call it Magel- 
kraut, and the Spaniards Nevadilla. It is the Paronique of the French. 


4, ALL-SEED (Polycdrpon). 


Four-leaved All-seed (P. ¢etraphijllum). —Stems prostrate and 
branched ; leaves oval, tapering at the base, upper leaves in pairs, lower in 
fours ; flowers with 3 stamens. Plant annual. This plant is neither con- 
spicuous nor frequent in this kingdom, occurring chiefly on the southern 
coast of England. It has also been found in Glamorganshire, and is a 
common saad | in the Isle of Jersey, growing all about St. Aubyns, on sunny 
banks, on hedges, and in gardens. It produces, from May to August, 
numerous little greenish-white flowers. It has plenty of tiny seeds in its 
small two-valved capsules ; but the name which it now bears was originally 
applied to the common Knot-grass (Polygonum aviculare), which it somewhat 
resembles. One of its old English names was Linum. 


Order XXXV. CRASSULACEAZ—STONECROP TRIBE. 


Sepals 3—20, more or less united at the base ; petals equal to the sepals 
in number, inserted in the bottom of the calyx; stamens as many, or twice 
as many—in the latter case, the stamens opposite the petals are shorter than 
the others; ovaries as many as the petals, 1-celled, tapering into stigmas, 
often with a gland at the base of each; fruit consisting of several erect seed- 
vessels, which open lengthwise ; seeds in a double row. This order is com- 
posed of herbs and shrubs, which have thick succulent leaves and stems, and 
star-shaped blossoms. They are remarkable for growing on the most arid 
soils, ornamenting the sandy deserts of Southern Africa with beautiful 
blossoms, and inhabiting, in greater or lesser number, all parts of the world. 
Many grow on rocks; some on walls or roofs of houses, or dry, hot, sunny 
slopes ; living on the nutriment derived from the atmosphere, rather than on 
that absorbed through the roots. Many of the plants are used medicinally, 
being often pungent or acrid, in several cases refrigerant, and in some 
astringent, or containing malic acid. 

1. TiLL#A.—Sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels 3—5, one or more 
seeded. Name from an Italian botanist, Michael Angelo Tilli. 

2. PENNyworT (Cotylédon).—Sepals 5; corolla tubular, 5-cleft ; stamens 
10; carpels 5, with a scale at the base of each. Name from the Greek 
két wl a cup, from the form of the leaves. 

3. HOUSE-LEEK (Sempervivum). — Sepals, petals, and carpels 6 — 10 ; 
stamens, twice as many. Name from the Latin semper, always, and vivo, to 
live. 


STONECROP TRIBE 21 


4. StonEcrop (Sédum).— Sepals and petals 4—5; stamens 8—10, 
spreading ; carpels 4—5. Name from the Latin sedeo, to sit, from the lowly 
growth of the plants. 

1. TILL&A. 


Mossy Tillza (7. muscésa).—Stems branched, and bending down at 
the base ; leaves opposite, oblong, concave ; flowers generally 3-cleft. Plant 
annual. This little Tillea, though quite distinct from the pearlworts, is 
much like them. The small greenish-white flowers expand in May and 
June, and have a reddish tinge at the tips of the petals; the calyx leaves 
are sharply pointed. It is a plant of sandy heaths, but of rare occurrence, 
its range in this country extending only from Norfolk to Devon. 


2. PENNYworT (Cotylédon). 


Wall Pennywort (C. wmbilicus).—Leaves circular, on central stalks, 
and with rounded notches on their margins, generally more or less concave 
above ; upper bracts very small and entire. Plant perennial. This singular- 
looking plant has spikes of long drooping bell-shaped flowers, with the 
corolla cleft nearly to the middle. They are of greenish-white colour, ap- 
pearing from June to July. The plant owes its name of Pennywort to the 
round leaves ; it is also in some country places called Penny-pies, or Kidney- 
wort. It is Le Cotylei, or Cotylier, of the French. The glossy root-leaves are 
pellate—that is, the leaf-stalk is in the centre of the underside. On the 
upper surface they are somewhat sunk in the centre, and in some of the 
species cultivated in our gardens they are much more so, forming little cups 
or vases. The stem-leaves are spoon-shaped. The plant is very succulent, 
and the flowering stem is from half a foot’to a foot and a half high. 

This Pennywort is very common in some parts of the kingdom, especially 
in the western counties, but there are many districts where it is scarcely ever 
seen. The Rev. W. T. Bree remarks, that he scarcely remembers ever 
finding it in Warwickshire, except on the ruins of Maxstoke Priory, and 
there but sparingly ; while in Cornwall, some parts of Somersetshire, and in 
the county of Wicklow, as well as in North Wales, it is abundant on rocks, 
walls, and banks. It is rare in Kent, but the author once received a specimen 
of the plant from the wall of Maidstone Church. Its ordinary place of © 
growth is the old wall, roof, or stone dyke, and it is very luxuriant on moist 
rocks in mountainous countries. When its flower-spikes cover the face of a 
stone-built hedge, as may commonly be seen in Cornwall, its appearance 
is very striking. There the root-leaves often attain a diameter of four 
inches. 

A species called Cotyledon lutea is sometimes enumerated among our native 
flowers, but it is not a British plant. 


3. HOUSE-LEEK (Sempervivum). 


Common House-leek (8S. tectérwm). — Leaves thick, fleshy, fringed 
with delicate hairs ; flowers containing 12 perfect, and 12 imperfect stamens. 
Plant perennial. Tufts of juicy leaves of the House-leek, forming large 
verdant patches on the ccttage-roof or wall-top, though not so frequent as 


22 CRASSULACEA 


they once were, are yet common. In many a spot such scenes may be seen 
as one which Leyden so long remembered, and so deeply deplored :— 
‘* The cottage roof fern-thatch’d, and gray, 

Invites the weary traveller from the way, 

To rest and taste the peasant’s simple cheer, 

Repaid by news and tales he loves to hear ; 

The clay-built wall with woodbine twisted o’er, 

The House-leek clustering green above the door ; 

While through the sheltering elms that round them grew, 

The winding smoke arose in columns blue.” 

The old Dutch names of this flower, Donderbaard, and Donderbloem, remind 
us of the notions which in former days induced the planting of the House- 
leek on the roof of the dwelling. It was in our own, as in other lands, 
deemed a preservative against thunder. This superstition seems banished 
from our country ; but a friend of the writer’s, when residing in Holland, 
seeing a roof almost covered with the plant, inquired of the owner of the 
house why it was cultivated there, and was told that it was a certain protec- 
tion from the danger of the storm. One of our old herbalists says, “It is 
reported by Mizaldus to preserve what it grows upon from fire and light- 
ning.” Another old writer, speaking of the bay-leaf as “privileged from 
the prejudice of thunder,” adds :—‘‘ An ancient author recited among divers 
experiments of Nature which he had found out, that if the herb House-leek, 
or Sengreen, do grow on the housetop, the same house is never stricken with 
thunder and lightning. Even the philosophical Sir Thomas Browne, whose 
work on Vulgar Errors must have done some service in the cause of truth, 
yet never doubted that the House-leek was, as he expresses himself, ‘a defen- 
sative’ from lightning.” 

The House-leek may easily be made to cover the whole roof of a building, 
whether of tiles or thatch, by setting the offsets with a little earth. It will 
also grow freely on the tops of walls. Linnzeus remarked that House-leek 
was a preservative to the coverings of houses in Smoland ; and it seems a 
frequent custom in the north of Europe to give to the houses a plot of some 
verdant plant, many roofs in Sweden being covered with green turf, which 
in summer is fit for mowing, presenting the singular appearance in the streets 
of numerous little sloping meadows. Nowhere does the House-leek, how- 
ever, grow to such luxuriance as at Teneriffe, where plants of this genus 
are often shrubs, and flourish on the steep cliffs and rocks in the neighbour- 
hood of the sea so as almost to cover them. Some of the old Gothic mansions 
in the interior of the island have their walls and roofs quite overspread with 
ferns and House-leek. In the flowering season they produce a most brilliant 
effect, for their flowers are large, and instead of the purple blossoms which 
deck the European species, those of Teneriffe are of a bright golden-yellow. 

The House-leek is often boiled with milk, and given to quench thirst in 
fevers. Mixed with honey it is a good application for inflammation of the 
throat. Old writers describe its uses, when bound about the forehead, “to 
ease the headache, and distempered heat of the brain in frenzies, or through 
want of sleep.” The juice mixed with cream is still a popular village remedy 
for erysipelas ; and we can ourselves testify to its uses in allaying the irrita- 
tion caused by the sting either of the bee or nettle. One of the species 


lo 


MOSSY TILLZA 
Tila muscosa 
WALL PENNYWORT 


Cotyledon umbilicus 


C lutea 


Pil. 83. 


4 


COMMON HOUSE LEEK 


Se 


ROSE-ROOT 


ORPINE 


mpervivam tectorum 


5S TONECROP 


Sedum rhodiola. 


3 


telephiam 


STONECROP TRIBE 23 


common in Madeira, the Sempervivum glutinosum, is of much service to fisher- 
men. ‘They rub their nets with the fresh leaves of this plant, and if they are 
subsequently dipped in any alkaline liquor they are rendered as durable as 
if they were tanned. Several species cultivated in our gardens and green- 
houses are very pretty. The Cobweb House-leek has long white hairs at the 
tips of its leaves, which cross, and present the appearance of a plant over 
which the spider has trailed its net. 

Our common House-leek has, in July, handsome succulent flowers of a 
reddish-purple colour. The plant had in earlier times the names of Sengreen, 
Jupiter’s beard, Jupiter’s eye, and Bullock’s eye. It is called in France, 
Joubarbe, and in Germany, Hauswurz ; the Italians term it Sempervivo. 

The House-leek must be regarded rather as a naturalized than a native 
plant. It is rarely, if ever, found in our country even apparently wild, being 
usually on walls and house-tops. Schouw, in considering plants in their 
relation to soils, enumerates some which grow on living or dead animals or 
plants, and those which grow on artificial substances. These last he divides 
into wall, ruin, plank, and rubbish plants. Meyen, referring to this, says : 
“Wall plants are those which appear on the walls of buildings, and certainly 
are very seldom wanting on them when old; but as they appear chiefly on 
very old decayed buildings, ruin plants are not properly distinct from them. 
As belonging to this class, I may name the lichen called wall lecanora 
(Lecanora muralis), the wall-moss (Dicranum murale), the fern called wall-rue 
(Asplenium ruta-muraria), the biting stonecrop, the livelong, and many others. 
But it is right to remark, that all these plants which we have considered as 
wall and ruin plants can grow quite as well in other situations, on the ground, 
or on the bark of trees, and on rocks; and a particular inclination to the 
artificial situation can only have been ascribed to them because in certain 
countries they are almost always to be found upon them. This is also the 
case with roof plants. Thus, the common or roof House-leek, which has a 
preference for such a habitat, occurs likewise in natural situations; and the 
numerous mosses, which in the North grow on roofs of houses, are found on 
the ground, on rocks, and on the bark of trees.” 

This German writer, following Schouw’s division, enumerates as board or 
plank plants those which grow on wooden palings or similar places. Such 
are the lichens, the wall parmelia and wall lecanora ; and these grow equally 
well on wood, or on stone walls, or rocks. On the garden-palings of other 
countries other plants prevail ; and Meyen says that in East Prussia there is 
seldom wanting on barn-doors a great quantity of the lichen Ramalina 
Jrazinea, often six inches in length. The rubbish plants are such as grow in 
the vicinity of dwellings, as the Good King Henry, the borage, and the 
henbane, which are often found on heaps about houses. 


4, ORPINE AND STONECROP (Sédum). 
* Leaves flat. 


1. Orpine, or Livelong (8. teléphium).—Leaves oval, often wedge- 
shaped at the base, serrated ; flowers in crowded corymbs, interspersed with 
leaves; stamens 10. Plant perennial. This is the largest of our British 


24 CRASSULACEA 


species of this genus, and has a very succulent stem, terminating, in July 
and August, with clusters of handsome purple flowers. The stem is often 
two feet high, and spotted ; and the thick leaves at the upper part are in 
one variety rounded at the base, but in another all the leaves become narrow 
towards the stem. The Orpine is a generally dispersed plant, but not very 
abundant, occurring in field-borders, hedges, and bushy places. Its properties 
are slightly astringent, and the plant is boiled with milk and used medicinally. 
It is also sometimes pickled like samphire, but is very inferior to that 
vegetable. 

The name of Livelong well denotes a peculiarity of this plant, which 
Spenser describes as— 


‘Cool Orpine growing still,” 
to) fo) ? 


for it not only continues fresh long after it is gathered, but if hung up in a 
room will continue to grow for some weeks as well as when in the earth. It 
seems to have been a very favourite flower of our ancestors, and we find it 
in the list of almost all accounts of such processions and floral ceremonies as 
occurred when it was in season. It was one which was named in all the 
accounts given of the practices of Midsummer Eve, and it has the old name 
of Midsummer-men. Lyte, in his translation of Dodoens’ “ Herbal,” says 
of the ‘““Orpyne”: ‘The people of the countrey delight much to set it in 
pots and shelles on Midsummer-even, or upon timber, slattes, or trenchers, 
daubed with clay, and so to set or hang it up in their houses, where as it 
remaineth greene a long season, and groweth if it be sometimes oversprinkled 
with water. It floureth most times in August.” Many foolish and super- 
stitious practices were connected with it, for it was a kind of love-charm ; 
and they appear to have been sometimes used even in later days, for Hannah 
More relates of a young country girl, that she would never go to bed on 
Midsummer Eve without putting up in her room a piece of the plant called 
Midsummer-men, as the bending the leaves to the right or to the left 
would indicate the constancy or faithlessness of the object of her thoughts. 

Sir Henry Ellis mentions that “A small gold ring was some years since 
found by the Rey. Dr. Bacon, of Wakefield, in a ploughed field near Cawood, 
in Yorkshire, which had for its device two Orpine plants joined in a true-love- 
knot, with this motto above, ‘Ma fiance velt’—that is, ‘My betrothed wills, 
or is desirous.’ The stalks of the plant inclined towards each other, inti- 
mating that those to whom it belonged expected to be united in marriage. 
The motto under the ring was, ‘Joye Pamour feu.” The Society of 
Antiquaries, to whom it was exhibited, judged from the form of the letters 
that it was a ring of the fifteenth century. 

2. Rose-root Stonecrop (S. rhodiola).—Leaves oblong, flat, smooth 
and toothed; flowers having stamens and pistils on different plants. Plant 
perennial. This Rose-root Stonecrop, which much resembles the Orpine, 
formerly constituted the genus called I’hodiola. It is a succulent broad- 
leaved plant, stouter than the Orpine, but with its stem shorter, and rarely 
more than a foot in height. Its flowers expand in June, and are of yellow 
or purplish colour. The root-stock is long, thick and knotted, and has, when 
dried, a sweet odour, resembling that of the rose. The plant is abundant 


STONECROP TRIBE 25 


on mountains and cliffs in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and also at the north 
of England. The root is used by the Greenlanders as an esculent vegetable. 


* * Leaves scarcely uf at all flattened. Flowers white or reddish. 


3. English Stonecrop(S. anglicum).—Leaves egg-shaped, fleshy, spurred 
at the base beneath, sessile ; cymes few-flowered ; petals very sharply pointed. 
Plant perennial. ‘This species, though small, is one of the prettiest of the 
genus, when, in May or June, its white star-like flowers, with reddish-purple 
anthers, are expanded on the rocky sandy soils. The leaves, which are 
chiefly placed alternately, are small and thick, of a sea-green hue, often 
tinged with red; and the stems, which are at first prostrate, afterwards 
become about three or four inches high. On the western shores of England 
and Scotland this Stonecrop often enlivens by its green masses and flowers 
the rocky banks; and in North Wales every rock and mountain seems to 
be adorned by it. It has much of the general appearance of the Common 
Biting Stonecrop, only that its flowers are not yellow, and it often grows 
with it, as Bishop Mant has said :— 

‘*See on the inland garden’s bound 
Or antique battlemented mound, 
Which girds some castle’s steep aloof, 
Or lowly peasant’s peaceful roof, 
The Stonecrop spreads a mantle bright, 
Like cloth of gold, or silver white, 
Powder’d with spots of garnet red.” 

4. White Stonecrop (S. dlbuwm).—Leaves oblong, cylindrical, blunt, 
scattered ; cymes much branched, and drooping when in bud. Plant 
perennial. This species, which is not common, does not appear to be truly 
wild, except perhaps on the Malvern Hills and in Somerset. It is a some- 
what taller and less thick plant than the last, and its white flowers, which 
are produced in July and August, are destitute of the bright purple colour 
which tinges the anthers of the English Stonecrop. The foliage has, how- 
ever, the same glaucous hue, often stained with red. It grows on rocks and 
walls in various counties of England, and is more general on garden walls 
and on outhouses, where it was probably cultivated, than on any other spots. 

5. Thick-leaved Stonecrop (8S. dasyphiyllum).—Leaves fleshy, almost 
globular, and opposite, except on the flowering stems; flowers in panicles ; 
petals egg-shaped and blunt. Plant perennial. This is a doubtful native, 
found occasionally on walls and rocks in various parts of England, and in 
one or two places in Scotland and Ireland. It is a small plant, having leaves 
of pale green tinged with red, and its pink-streaked white flowers blooming 
in June and July. 

6. Hairy Stonecrop (8S. villéswm).—Leaves scattered, oblong, flattened 
above, and, as well as the stems and flower-stalks, hairy. This is a small 
biennial species of Stonecrop, not common in all parts of the kingdom, 
though frequent in Scotland and the north of England. It would easily be 
distinguished in a family of plants remarkable for their smooth foliage, by 
its hairy stems and leaves, which are also clammy to the touch. Its stems 
are about two or three inches high, and of purplish colour ; and the flowers, 
which appear in June and July, are white or of a pale pink hue. 

11.—4 


26 CRASSULACEA 


* * * Leaves scarcely or not at all flattened ; flowers yellow 


7. Biting Stonecrop (S. dcre).—Leaves egg-shaped, fleshy, spurred at 
the base, sessile ; cymes 3-cleft, leafy ; petals pointed ; sepals blunt, swollen at 
the base. Plant perennial. This is a very common wild flower, growing on 
walls and tiles of houses, as well as on dry sandy slopes and heaths. From 
its frequency on the cottage-roof it sometimes shares with the Sempervwwum the 
name of house-leek, and is apparently the plant alluded to in Clare’s lines :— 


‘*O Home, however homely, thoughts of thee 
Can never fail to cheer the absent breast : 
Itow oft wild raptures have been felt by me 
When back returning weary and distrest ; 
IZow oft I’ve stood to see the chimney pour 
Thick clouds of smoke in columns lightly blue, 
And close beneath the house-leek’s yellow flower, 
While fast approaching to a nearer view.” 


The Dutch call this Stonecrop Huislook, and the Spaniards term it Uvus de 
gato. It well deserves, in common with most of the species, its name of 
Stonecrop, for it is often abundant on stony barren places, being well fitted 
for such soils by its succulent nature. Plants of this kind, like the aloe and 
the cactus, are designed to inhabit exposed and dry places, and sometimes to 
experience not only the heat of a scorching sun, but also a long season of 
drought. They are, therefore, provided by the Creator of the Universe not 
only with a large mass of juicy material, but the thin skin, or cuticle, which 
covers every part of them, is adapted to admit of ready absorption and 
tardy perspiration. It is this which enables the Livelong and several others 
of the species to live and grow when separated from the root. One of these 
succulent leaves, as that of an aloe, will, when partly dry, again become 
plump in a few hours if plunged into water. 

The Biting Stonecrop is very similar to some others of the yellow flower- 
ing species ; but, even when not in bloom, it may be known from all others 
by the mode in which its short thick leaves are arranged on its barren stems, 
where they crowd so closely as to overlap each other. Country people call 
it Small Houseleek, Prick Madam, Gold Chain, and Wall Pepper ; the last 
name being merited by its pungent flavour—indeed, it should be tasted with 
caution, as its juice is acrid enough to blister the tongue. It was a plant 
much in use among the old herbalists, both as an outward application, and 
also, when boiled in beer, as a remedy in pestilential fevers. They deemed 
it an “expeller of poisons,” and it stood pre-eminent among simples as a cure 
for ague. This species is the 7rique Madame of the French. 

8. Tasteless Yellow Stonecrop (S. sexanguldre).—Leaves linear, 
blunt, rounded, and spurred at the base; cymes 3-cleft, and smooth ; sepals 
acute, not swollen, at the base. Plant perennial. This species is not a 
native, though it is found rarely on old walls in Eastern England. The 
leaves are much longer than in the last species, and arranged in six rows on 
the barren shoots. The yellow flowers appear in July. 

9. Crooked Yellow Stonecrop (S. refléxum),—Leaves awl-shaped, 
scattered, spurred at the base, convex on both sides ; flowers in cymes ; sepals 
egg-shaped, rather acute. Plant perennial. A variety of this kind, which 


THICK-LEAVED STONECROP 
Sedum dasyphyllum 
St 

S. angheum . 


DN 


album. 


ive) 


villosum 


9 WELSH ROCK S. 
S. fosterianum . 


on 


6 


STONECROP , 


TASTELESS YELLOW 
S. sexangulare 


S?* VINCENT'S ROCK. S 


STONECROP TRIBE 27 


has more slender leaves, paler flowers, and is of glaucous hue, is termed by 
some botanists S. glaucum or S. albescens. It is described as growing on some 
dry hills near Mildenhall, Suffolk, and at Babbicombe in Devon ; and this 
is considered to be the indigenous form, that most commonly seen with 
brighter flowers being a garden escape. The leaves of the former are 
described as not spreading, whereas in the general state of the. Crooked 
Stonecrop they spread, and turn backwards. The flowering stems of this 
species are more slender and tough than those of any of the preceding kinds ; 
they are from six to ten inches long. In July and August, thick clusters 
of its bright yellow flowers are to be seen clothing many an old wall and 
sunny bank with golden beauty. Dr. George Johnston, remarking on its 
tenacity of life, says of this plant: “I pressed strongly, between dry papers, 
a specimen without radicles, and the flowers of which were not in the least 
expanded. ‘The papers were changed every three or four days; but at the 
end of as many weeks, so far was life from being extinct, that it had pro- 
truded many white root-fibres from one to two inches long, and the flowers 
had fully expanded themselves.” 

10. St. Vincent’s Rock Stonecrop (S. rupéstre).—Leaves slightly 
flattened, spurred at the base, and 5 in a whorl, those of the barren branches 
overlapping each other ; flowers in corymbs. Plant perennial. This species 
opens its flowers during June and July, not only on the St. Vincent’s and 
Cheddar rocks, but also on walls about Darlington, and in some places in 
Wales and Ireland. It is very nearly allied to the last, differing chiefly in 
its more flattened leaves, and smaller size. 

1l. Welsh Rock Stonecrop (8S. forsteriénum). — Leaves flattened, 
spurred at the base, those of the barren branches spreading in many rows. 
Plant perennial. This species flowers in June and July, on wet rocks in 
Wales and the adjoining English counties. The short, erect, densely leafy, 
barren stems, forming little rose-like tufts, are its chief characteristics ; but 
some botanists doubt if it is essentially distinct from the preceding, of which 
they regard it as a sub-species. 


Order XXXVI. GROSSULARIEAX—GOOSEBERRY AND 
CURRANT TRIBE. 


Calyx growing from the summit of the ovary, 4 or 5 cleft; petals 4—5, 
small, inserted at the mouth of the calyx-tube, and alternating with the 
stamens ; ovary l-celled, with the young seeds arranged in two opposite 
rows ; styles 2; berry crowned with the withered calyx, pulpy, containing 
stalked seeds among the pulp. This order consists of shrubs with or with- 
out thorns, and with simple lobed alternate leaves plaited while in bud. The 
woody stems and branches are round, or irregularly angled. The species 
grow only in the temperate parts of the world. 

CURRANT AND GOOSEBERRY (Jtébes).—Calyx 5-cleft; petals 5, inserted 
at the mouth of the calyx-tube ; stamens 5; berry many-seeded, crowned by 
the withered calyx. Names given in ancient timcs by the Arabians to a 
species of rhubarb. 

4—2 


28 GROSSULARIEA 


CURRANT AND GOOSEBERRY (Lébes). 
* Flowers 1—3 together ; branches thorny. 

1. Gooseberry (R. grossuliria).—Leaves rounded and lobed ; flower- 
stalks short, hairy, 1—3 flowered, with a pair of small bracts; thorns either 
single, or two or three together. Among the many kinds of Gooseberry 
which are cultivated in our gardens, few are preferred for their fruits to the 
varieties of this common species. The plant grows in many woods and 
hedges, though it seems to be truly wild only in the north of England. 
Rough and smooth, green, red, and yellow Gooseberries may, many of them, 
claim this common species as their parent. From very early times the Goose- 
berry has been much cultivated in this country, and it was by our forefathers 
called Feaberry. Mr. T. Hudson Turner says: “The earliest notice of the 
Gooseberry which I have found is in the fourth year of Edward I, 1276, 
when plants of this genus were purchased for the king’s garden at West- 
minster ; but, as it is an indigenous fruit, we may infer that it was known at 
a remote time, though probably only in a wild state.” Tusser, who wrote 
his work on Husbandry in the time of Henry VIII., says :— 

‘* The barbery, respis, and gooseberry too, 
Look now to be planted as other things doe ;’ 

and Lord Bacon, writing about fifty years after Tusser, says: ‘The earliest 
fruits are strawberries, cherries, gooseberries, and corrans; and after them, 
early apples, early pears, apricots, and rasps ; and after them, damisons, and 
most kind of plums, peaches, etc. ; and the latest are apples, wardens, grapes, 
nuts, quinces, sloes, brierberries, medlers, services, cornelians, etc.” ‘The 
partiality of the English for Gooseberries is commented on in the French 
“Encyclopédie des Sciences.” One of the writers of the work says: “A 
great number of gooseberries are consumed in Holland and in England ; and 
one sees in London, during the season of these fruits, nothing but gooseberry 
pies. One must admit, however, that this fruit is well adapted to ameliorate 
the muriatic and alkaline acrimony of the English diet. In France it is only 
women and children, or country people, who eat gooseberries.” One reason, 
however, for their being less eaten may be found in the inferiority of the 
fruits when cultivated in France, or, indeed, in any warm climate. Even the 
English Gooseberry is inferior to the fruit of Scotland; and, provided there 
is warmth enough for ripening, the flavour seems to increase with the cold- 
ness of the climate where it is grown. In the south of Europe the fruit is 
so small and tasteless that it is quite neglected. 

In England every cottage-garden can boast its Gooseberry-bush, and, as 
Bishop Mant has said :— 


‘Tis pleasant on each hardy tree, 
Currant or prickly Gooseberry, 
Along the hawthorn’s level line, 

Or bush of fragrant eglantine, 
Bramble or pithy elder pale, 

Or larch or woodbine’s twisted trail, 
Or willow lithe, a flush of green 

To note, with light transparent screen 
At intervals the branches hide, 

Of vegetable gauze, till wide 

It spreads, and thickens to the eye, 
A close-wove veil of deeper dye.” 


1 COMMON OR RED CURRANT 


BLACK CURRANT 
Ribes rubrum Romgrum 
2 TASTELESS MOUNTAIN CURRANT 4. COMMON GOOSEBERRY 


R. alpinum R. grossulavia 


BUS Ss: 


GOOSEBERRY AND CURRANT TRIBE 29 


The Gooseberry-leaf is, indeed, among the earliest of spring verdure. In 
France it is much more common in the hedges than with us; and from the 
beginning of March the plant may be seen winding its branches among the 
bushes, and enlivening the dreary season. “In the month of April,” says 
the French writer in “ L’Encyclopédie des Sciences,” ‘it attracts by its flowers 
crowds of bees; its foliage is very thick then, though other shrubs are just 
putting forth their leaves, so that it is an excellent plant for decking spring 
arbours. I have a hedge which borders one of the paths of my April bower, 
in front of which I have planted primroses, violets, and auriculas, which 
contrast agreeably with the green background, and form a most graceful coup 
Veil.” The leaf-stalks of the Gooseberry are beautiful objects beneath the 
microscope, on account of the delicate border of half-transparent hair-like fringe, 
which, when magnified, looks like the most brilliant needle-shaped crystals. 

The Lancashire Gooseberries are the best which are grown in our country, 
and the names of several well-known varieties indicate that they were culti- 
vated by working-men. All true lovers of their country must rejoice to see 
the hard-toiling weaver or collier resorting at the close of the day to his 
little garden, training his plants with care and skill, and striving to gain the 
prize to be given at the Gooseberry Show for the heaviest gooseberry. The 
Jolly Miner, Jolly Painter, Lancashire Lad, and many another good fruit, 
have originated thus, and were the result of industry. These Gooseberries 
were reared by men who loved their homes and families, men of regular and 
orderly habits, mostly of lowly birth, but often of elevated feeling and 
Christian worth; for the lovers of plants and the skilful cultivators of 
cottage plots are not usually found among the idle and dissipated of man- 
kind. Gooseberry-bushes often attain great age and considerable size. At 
Duffield, near Derby, there was, about twenty years since, a bush well known 
to be at least forty-six years old, the branches of which extended twelve 
yards in circumference ; and in the garden of Sir Joseph Banks, at Overton 
Hall, near Chesterfield, there were two very large bushes, which had been 
trained against a wall, and which measured each upwards of fifty feet across. 
A writer in the Gardener’s Chronicle remarks of a Gooseberry plant: “It is 
surprising what efforts some plants, or parts of plants, will make to save, as 
it were, their lives when diseases or serious accidents befall them. A branch 
of a Gooseberry, trained against a wall; became diseased near the ground, and 
began to die upwards gradually ; but the top of the branch made a struggle 
for life, and threw out roots into the wall between the joints of the bricks, 
and in that dry situation found means to support itself ; the dead wood was 
cut out, and the living part left near the top of the wall, and there it remains 
a living plant.” 

Gooseberries are of various colours—white, yellow, green, and red. 
Some of our richest flavoured fruits are of the yellow kind; the red goose- 
berries are usually more acid than the others, but there are many varieties 
in all the colours. We need not comment on their uses for tarts, puddings, 
and preserves. The fresh fruits are valuable additions to the dessert, and a 
sparkling wine of crystal clearness, known in country places as English 
champagne, is made of the gooseberry. The Pecten acid, the vegetable jelly 
of the older chemists, was also prepared from this fruit. 


30 GROSSULARIEAG 


The groseille of the French, as well as our own word “ gooseberry,” has been 
variously accounted for by etymologists. Some think that the English name 
was derived from “ gorse” and “berry,” because of the prickly shrub on which 
the fruit grows. Professor Burnett thinks that both the French and English 
words are corruptions of “grois” or “gross” berry ; and Skinner considers 
that the plant was called gooseberry, because the fruits were used as sauce 
for the goose. Gerarde calls them Feaberries, and in Norfolk the fruits were 
called feabes. This author remarks, “The fruit is used in divers sawees for 
meate ; they are used in brothes instead of verjuyce, which maketh the 
broth not onely pleasant to the taste, but is greatly profitable to such as are 
troubled with a hot burning ague.” 


* * Flowers in clusters ; branches without thorns. 


2. Red Currant (2&. rébrum).—Clusters drooping; bracts very small ; 
leaves with five blunt lobes. Plant perennial. Several varieties of this 
plant are found apparently wild, in one of which the flowering clusters are 
erect, but the fruit is pendulous ; and in another both flowers and fruit are 
upright ; but in the ordinary form of the plant both flowers and fruit hang 
drooping from the bough. The shrub, though found growing without culture 
in many parts of this kingdom, especially in hedges near houses, is hardly 
to be considered as truly wild, except in the north of England and the High- 
lands of Scotland. In Dodoens’ “ History of Plants,” translated by Lyte in 
1578, it is called the red beyond-sea gooseberry ; and in France, one of the 
modern names for the currant is roseille @outre mer. ‘The French also call 
currants Groseilles en grappes, and the plant is termed in Germany Cemeine 
Johannisbeere. The old writers classed it with the Gooseberry ; for Gerarde 
says, “We have also in our London gardens another sort of Gooseberry 
altogether without prickes, whose fruit is verie small, lesser by much than 
the common kinde, but of a perfect red colour, wherein it differeth from the 
rest of his kinde.” Our English name, doubtless, owes its origin to the dried 
seedless grape of the Levant, which was called currant from Corinth ; for 
our plant was formerly thought to be the Corinthian grape degenerated. 
The white and flesh-coloured fruits, so common in gardens, are but varieties 
of the red species. Their pleasant acid flavour is the consequence of the 
malic acid found in their juice ; and, mixed with sugar, the fruit is of much 
value for domestic uses. The berries are refrigerant, and form a wholesome 
refreshment at that season of the year when juicy fruits are needed to 
counteract the effects produced on the system by the heat of the atmosphere. 
Being a hardy shrub, the Currant is valuable to the cottager; and when 
trained against a wall, and bearing in profusion its ruby clusters, which 
sparkle among the green leaves, it is as ornamental as it is useful. The red 
currant, besides having many other uses, is of great value for jellies; and 
both white and red currants were formerly used in wine, when home-made 
wines were more general than they now are. The wine is, however, too acid 
to be very wholesome. This plant was some years since grown to a great 
extent in Kent, Essex, and Worcestershire, the best-flavoured fruits being 
produced by plants which were reared in an open situation. It is wild, in 
more or less abundance, in all the colder countries of Europe, and is 


GOOSEBERRY AND CURRANT TRIBE 31 


cultivated in gardens in the more southern countries. It flowers in April 
and May. 

3. Tasteless Mountain Currant (2. alpinum).—Stamens and pistils 
on separate plants, branches angled, leaves shining beneath; clusters of 
flowers and fruit erect; bracts longer than the flowers. Plant perennial. 
This Currant grows in the woods and hedges of the north of England, but is 
scarcely wild in Scotland. Both leaves and flowers are very small. The 
currants are red. It is in flower in April and May. 

4. Black Currant (P. nigrwm).—Clusters loose, drooping, with a single- 
stalked flower at the base of each ; calyx downy ; leaves sharply 3—5-lobed, 
dotted with glands beneath. Plant perennial. This species is found in 
woods and by river-sides, in various places; and though probably not a 
native of Britain, the time of its introduction is unknown. Hooker says it 
is “apparently wild in the Lake district and Yorkshire.” It is quite a dis- 
tinct species, and has no tendency to produce varieties. In Kent, its fruit is 
commonly called gazel, and we find it so termed by writers of the sixteenth 
century ; but Coles, writing in 1657, says the white currant was in Kent 
called gozill. It is a very common plant in the woods of Russia and Siberia, 
where wine is made of the berries only, or is fermented with honey, and 
sometimes with some spirituous liquor. In England, the flavour of the black 
currant is not liked so well as that of the red; but the jelly and lozenges 
made of the fruit are valuable medicines in affections of the throat. The 
leaves have a strong odour, unpleasant to most persons, yet well-liked by the 
natives of Siberia, who mingle them with a spirit, to which they are con- 
sidered to impart a delicious flavour. They are often mixed with green tea 
in country places, and they are said to be one of the substances used by those 
who adulterate that article, and perhaps are among the most innocent ingre- 
dients employed for the purpose. The fruits are considered tonic and 
stimulating, and the wood and leaves partake of these properties. The 
berry is the largest of our currants, and is black and glossy. Some very 
pretty currant shrubs are cultivated in gardens. The common Red-flowered 
Currant (ft. sanguinea), and the sweet-scented Yellow Currant (2. aurea), are 
among the gayest of our garden flowers in March and April. 


Order XXXVII. SAXIFRAGEA—SAXIFRAGE TRIBE. 


Calyx of 4—5 sepals united at the base; petals equalling the sepals in 
number, inserted between the sepals, rarely wanting ; stamens 5—10; ovary 
of 2 united carpels ; styles 2, usually spreading in opposite directions ; cap- 
sule 2-celled, opening on the inner side; seeds numerous. This order con- 
sists chiefly of herbaceous plants, with alternate, rarely opposite, leaves. The 
species contain no very important properties, though some British plants are 
shghtly astringent, and some foreign species are more so. The Heucheria 
amerwana, a plant of this order, is commonly called Alum-root, from its 
astringency ; and several species of /Vcimmannia are employed in the manu- 
facture of leather, as well as in the adulteration of Peruvian bark. The 
genus Sawifraga is a very extensive one. It yields some mucilage, but its 


22 SAXIFRAGEAL 


greatest worth is the beauty of its flowers, which often adorn lofty moun- 
tains, or in other cases deck the barren wall or rock. ‘They are frequently 
the most lovely objects in Alpine wildernesses, flowering with the blue 
gentians in spots almost inaccessible to the traveller, and giving by their 
leaves an almost perpetual verdure to barren soils. Some species grow on 
marshes or by river-sides. 

1. SAXIFRAGE (Saaéfraga).—Calyx in 5 divisions ; petals 5; stamens 10; 
styles 2; capsule 2-celled, 2-beaked, opening between the beaks; seeds 
numerous. Name from sazum, a stone, and frango, to break, probably from 
some species growing among the crevices of rocks. 

2. GOLDEN SAXIFRAGE (Chrysosplénium).—Calyx with 4 or 5 lobes ; petals 
none; stamens 8, rarely 10; styles 2; capsules 2, beaked. Name from the 
Greek, chrysos, gold, and splen, the spleen, from some imagined virtues of the 
plant. 

1. SAXIFRAGE (Saxifraga). 
Calyx veflexed, inferior ; flowers whitish, panicled. 


1. Starry Saxifrage (8. stelldris).— Leaves oblong, wedge-shaped, 
toothed, scarcely stalked; panicles of few flowers. Plant perennial. This 
plant grows on mountainous places by the side of rivulets, or on wet rocks, 
in Scotland, England, Wales, and the north of Ireland. It is from two to 
five inches high, its leaves having large roundish notches at their edges. The 
few flowers expand in June and July. They are white, with two yellow 
spots at the base of each petal. 

2. London Pride (S. wmbrdésa).—Leaves roundish, oval, with white 
cartilaginous notches, tapering at the base into a flat foot-stalk. Plant 
perennial. This beautiful little flower is well known as one of the few which 
will bear unhurt the smoke of large cities. It grows well in London, flourish- 
ing not only in the squares and open parts of the great city, where many 
hardy flowers may be found, but cheering also some of the gloomy little 
spots at the backs of houses in densely populated neighbourhoods. One 
sighs at the sight of these small plots, though glad that when even the 
‘‘mournful mint” seemed injured by the sooty mist gathered about it, yet 
the London Pride survived all the ills of its condition, and perchance soothed 
some careworn heart by its cheerful flower. Bishop Mant thus alludes to 
this and another plant :— 

“Its disk of white on upland wolds 
The pretty Saxifrage unfolds, 
With lucid spots of crimson pied, 
Hence brought, and hail’d the City’s Pride ; 
And yellow rose-root yields its smell 
From Cambrian crag or Cumbrian fell, 
Or Rachlin’s lone basaltic isle.” 

This Saxifrage is found on the mountains of Ireland so plentifully, that 
it has the common name of St. Patrick’s Cabbage. It is also called None-so- 
pretty ; and the old name of Queen Anne’s Needlework was doubtless given 
from the delicate red spots traced on its white petals, and which to some of 
the embroiderers, who in those days practised the mysteries of ‘tent work, 
raised work, laid work, frost work, Irish stitch, fern stitch, Spanish stitch, 


SAXIFRAGE TRIBE 33 


rosemary stitch,” and many another stitch, suggested the remembrance of 
some one of their manifold traceries and devices. Parkinson, writing of it in 
1629, terms it Sedum, and says, “Some of our English gentlewomen have 
called it Prince’s Feather, which, although it be but a by-name, may well 
serve for this plant to distinguish it.” 

The London Pride as a wild plant is rare in England, though naturalized 
in woods at Wetherby and at Craven, in Yorkshire. The Rev. W. T. Bree, 
commenting on this plant, says, “ Mr. Lees informs us that Sazifraga umbrosa 
may now be found on some of the rocks at Malvern; but he very properly 
assigns to it a garden origin. Some years since, while touring in Yorkshire, 
I was at no small pains in endeavouring to meet with this plant in a truly 
wild state, and with this view visited the spot (Hestleton Gill) so minutely 
pointed out as its habitat in ‘English Botany.’ The result, however, of my 
examination was only an increased doubt as to the species being even in this 
sequestered spot really of spontaneous growth. It has been confidently 
asserted that the plant occurs wild in Ireland; but erroneously, I believe, 
’ unless indeed the discovery has been made of late years. The London Prides 
which grow unquestionably wild, and so profusely adorn the rocks and 
mountains of Kerry, that is, the Gap of Dunloe, and the rocks near Killarney, 
are not Suxifraga wmbrosa, but some allied species, be they two (S. geum and 
hirsuta) or more, with their perplexing host of endless varieties ; and I very 
much doubt whether any truly wild habitat for Saxifraga umbrosa be yet 
known, either in Ireland, England, or even Scotland; or, indeed, whether 
the plant be in fact originally indigenous. Ireland is the proper country of 
the London Pride family of the Saxifrage genus. In some parts of that 
country they grow in astonishing profusion; but among all the countless 
varieties which are to be met with, I never could see in a wild state any one 
that could be mistaken by a botanist for the true S. wmbrosa.” Our best 
writers on British plants, as Sir William Hooker, Dr. Arnott, and Mr. 
Babington, all agree with the opinion that the plant is not indigenous in 
Britain, though it is regarded as a native of West and South-west Ireland. 
Besides the places named, it grows about Edinburgh and Glasgow. Several 
varieties occur of this species, many of which are regarded by some botanists 
as distinct species. Such a one is the plant called S. elegans, which grows on ° 
the Turk mountain, and is probably a hybrid between S. wnbrosa and S. geum. 
It has round, smooth, shining serrated leaves, with foot-stalks which are broad, 
flat, and serrated beneath. The type of the species has smooth leaves, longer 
than they are broad, with the teeth either blunt or short, and pointed ; and 
it flowers in June and July. The varieties differ much in the toothing, as 
well as in the form of the leaves. 

3. Kidney-shaped Saxifrage (S. géwi).—Leaves roundish or kidney- 
shaped, sharply toothed, or having rounded notches ; foot-stalks hairy, linear, 
and channelled above ; leaves in one form hairy on both sides, in a second 
variety smooth on both sides. Plant perennial. This species is very nearly 
allied to S. umbrosa, of which it is probably a sub-species, but it may be dis- 
tinguished by its kidney-shaped leaves. It flowers in June, and is common 
on the mountains of Cork and Kerry. Its ordinary form has the leaves 
sharply toothed, but there are several varieties and hybrids found in its 

I.—5 


34 SAXIFRAGEAL 


neighbourhood, which have by botanists been described as distinct species. 
The chief of these is a plant formerly called Hairy Saxifrage (S. hirsuta), 
which has slightly hairy, oval, dark green leaves, scarcely cordate at the base, 
and which appears to be intermediate between this and S. wmbrosa. It is 
common on the Gap of Dunloe, in Kerry. The Kidney-shaped Saxifrage 
varies not only in the amount of its hairiness, but also in respect of size, 
and in the degree in which the margin of the leaf is toothed. 


* * Calyx spreading ; leaves not divided. 


4, Clustered Alpine Saxifrage (S. nivdlis).—Leaves all from the 
root, somewhat leathery, inversely egg-shaped, sharply crenate ; calyx half 
inferior ; flowers in a crowded head. Plant perennial. This alpine species 
is from three to six inches high, and has large white flowers growing in a 
compact cluster, and appearing in July and August. It is frequent among 
the clefts of the high mountains of Wales, Scotland, and the Lake district. 
Linneus stated that the Alpine Saxifrage flowered in the regions of eternal 
snow; and later botanists have occasionally detected a prolific vegetation 
existing even under the snow of Arctic regions. Dr. Hooker mentions that 
whilst at Tierra del Fuego he had observed a Pernettya mucronata in full 
bloom in a spot from which the snow had been accidentally removed. 

5. Yellow Mountain Saxifrage (S. atzoides).—Leaves very narrow, 
fleshy, fringed, the lower ones crowded on the stem, the upper scattered ; 
stem branched, prostrate below; capsule half superior. Plant perennial. 
This beautiful Saxifrage, though absent from our lowland meadows, is very 
abundant on mountains, especially near streams and rills. It is found in the 
north of England, Wales, and Scotland, having in June and July bright 
yellow flowers, spotted with reddish orange. The plant is sometimes called 
Aizoon-like Saxifrage, or Sengreen Saxifrage. 

6. Yellow Marsh Saxifrage (S. hérculus).—Stem erect ; leaves lanceo- 
late, those from the root tapering into a leaf-stalk ; calyx inferior, fringed at 
the margin ; petals obtuse, with two callous points near the base. Plant 
perennial. It differs from the last species in having its flowers solitary, or 
nearly so. These are large and handsome, of bright yellow, spotted with 
scarlet at the base of the petals, and are produced from August to September. 
The stem is from four to eight inches in height, and the upper part is downy. 
The species, which is very rare, is found on wet moors in Scotland, Ireland, 
and the north of England. 

7. Purple Mountain Saxifrage (S. oppositifvlia).—Leaves egg-shaped, 
fringed, opposite, and closely crowded, so as to overlap each other ; flowers 
solitary, terminal. Plant perennial. A lovely mountain-flower is this 
Saxifrage, occurring in alpine situations, fearless of snow or frost, and 
opening its rich purple blossoms in May and June. Its habit is unlike that 
of our other Saxifrages, as it forms straggling tufts on the moist alpine rocks 
in the north of England, and on Snowdon and other Welsh mountains, 
though its most frequent place of growth in this kingdom is in the Highlands 
of Scotland. Like several other of our native Saxifrages, the northern range 
of S. oppositifolia extends into the Arctic circle. Accustomed, as most persons 
have long been, to consider the regions of the Polar Seas as drear and almost 


2 


oD 


+ 


6 


LONDON PRIDE 
Scummbrosa 
STARRY § 
S. stellaris 
ALPINE CLUSTERED S 
S pival.s 
PURPLE MOUNTAIN S 


S. oppositifoha 
YELLOW MARSE S . 


Schireculos 


Saxifraga geum 


Pl. 36. 


7, ¥. MOUNTAIN g 
5. aizoides 
8. WHITE MEADOW S 
5. granolata. 
9. DROOPING BULBOUS §S 


5 cernua 
10. ALPINE BRGOK § 


S.zivularis 


IL, RUE-LEAVED S 


5. tuidactylites 


Te? ie 


Mi ; ; Ri 


SAXIFRAGE TRIBE 35 


flowerless, one is surprised to see such a plate as that prefixed to Dr. Suther- 
land’s work on these lands, where large and gorgeous flowers are grouped 
together. True it is that there are vast dreary barren tracts, covered only 
with incredible quantities of lichens, making a walk over the dried and crusty 
surface during summer a weary labour, while the eye is rarely gladdened by 
seeing here and there some dark fir or dwarfed birch-tree. Yet there are 
seasons and spots in which wild flowers vary the scene ; nor is the green turf 
altogether wanting, where, as Dr. Sutherland tells us, the chubby Esquimaux 
takes his childish pastime, rolling on the green spots which Nature has 
provided for him, watching with his bow and arrows, and the cunning eye 
of a sportsman, the ill-fated mouse or lemming that may have lost its hole in 
the grassy banks, or gathering the chickweed (Cerastium alpinum) which 
grows among the foxtail grass. In such regions the flowers of the Purple 
Saxifrage must afford delight to the traveller. “The most beautiful plant 
that one could see in a whole day’s walking around Assistance Bay,” says 
Dr. Sutherland, “was the Spider plant (Sazifraga flagellaris), so called from 
its striking resemblance to a large spider when it first appears above the 
surface, before the stem begins to rise from the spherical arrangement of the 
leaves, or the flagella begin to creep to any distance from among them to 
the soil around. This plant was rather late of coming into flower, but the 
poppy was still later. The Ranunculus frigidus had a very beautiful little 
flower, but it did not bear comparison with those of the other two which 
have been mentioned. The Purple Saxifrage (\S. oppositifolia) vied with, and 
perhaps in the estimation of some exceeded, the spider plant in beauty ; its 
chaste purple colour assisted this very much, but I do not think that this, 
which is mere colour, admits of comparison with the charm which is imparted 
to the other by its likeness to a creature so famous for its diligence.” 


* * * Calyx spreading ; leaves divided. 


8. White Meadow Saxifrage (S. granulita).—Root-leaves kidney- 
shaped, with rounded lobes, stalked; stem-leaves nearly sessile, acutely 
lobed ; flowers panicled; capsule partly inferior. Plant perennial. The 
large milk-white flowers of this species are by no means uncommon during 
May and June on hedge-banks, meadows, and pastures, especially where the 
soil is of gravel. The root gives its name to the species, being what botanists 
term granulated, and consisting of a number of small reddish, downy, round 
tubers. It is a pretty plant, with slender leafy stems, ten or twelve inches 
in height. A double variety is a common garden flower. 

9. Drooping Bulbous Saxifrage (S. cérnua).—Root-leaves kidney- 
shaped on long stalks, palmate and lobed ; flowers solitary and terminal ; 
capsule superior. Plant perennial. This species is now almost extinct on 
the only recorded British habitat. Its place of growth is on rocks on the 
summit of Ben Lawers, at an altitude of 4,000 feet. It is remarkable for 
producing small reddish bulbs in the axils of its upper leaves. The white 
flower appears on the slender drooping stem in July, but the plant rarely 
blossoms in this country, being mostly propagated by its bulbs. 

10. Rue-leaved Saxifrage (S. tridactylites).—Leaves wedge-shaped, 
3—5 cleft ; stem much branched ; flowers terminal, each on a single stalk ; 

5—2 


36 SAXIFRAGEA—SAXIFRAGE TRIBE 


capsule inferior. Plant annual. This little Saxifrage has small snowy-white 
flowers from April to July, on a stem two or three inches in height. It is 
very common on old walls, dry barren heaths, and the roofs of cottages in 
England, but it is rare in the west of Scotland and in the Highlands. The 
petals are so small as hardly to extend beyond the calyx. The foliage is of 
a rich green, turning red after flowering. It is thickly set with short hairs, 
terminated with red globules, which render it very clammy to the touch. It 
is a very elegant little plant. 

11. Alpine Brook Saxifrage (S. rivuldris).—Leaves 3—5 lobed, 
palmated, smooth, stalked; stem slender, branched, downy ; flowers few ; 
bracts oblong ; capsule half inferior. ‘This is a very scarce perennial species, 
found in Scotland on moist rocks near the summits of Ben Lawers and Ben 
Nevis, but not in abundance. The only spot where it is known to occur 
plentifully is on Loch-na-gar, Aberdeenshire. It grows in tufts; the stems, 
partly leaning on the ground before they rise into the air, root where they 
touch. The flowers are white, and appear in July and August. 

12. Mossy Saxifrage (S. hypndides).—Barren shoots long, and usually 
prostrate ; root-leaves 3-cleft, those of the shoots either undivided or 3-cleft, 
bristle-pointed, and more or less fringed; segments of the calyx pointed. 
Plant perennial. This is an abundant and most variable species, its leaves 
assuming so many forms that the varieties have been described as species 
under several names, and as such several are figured in our Plate 87. The 
flowers are white, expanding from May to July, on rocky mountainous 
situations in England, Scotland, and Ireland. S. platypetala, S. elongella, 
S. hirta, and S. palmata may be considered as varieties of this species. 

13. Tufted Alpine Saxifrage (S. cespitésa).—Barren shoots usually 
very short or wanting ; root-leaves crowded, fringed, 3—5 cleft, with obtuse 
lobes; calyx segments blunt. In one variety the plant is larger, and in 
another smaller, but both without barren shoots. In this rare species the 
white flowers expand from May to July. It grows on the summits of Irish, 
Scottish, and Welsh mountains, and is probably but an extreme form of the 
variable Mossy Saxifrage, and, like that, it has a perennial root-stock. 

14. Mossy Alpine Saxifrage (S. muscoides).—Barren shoots very 
short, erect ; root-leaves linear, blunt, and 3-cleft ; stem few-flowered ; calyx 
superior ; petals short, scarcely longer than the sepals. Perennial. This 
plant, which was said by Don to have been found in the Highlands of 
Scotland, is not a native. It has buff-coloured petals, expanding in May. 

15. Geranium Saxifrage (S. geranoides).—Barren shoots short ; leaves 
downy and glandular, lower ones, and those of the shoots, on very long foot- 
stalks, deeply 3-cleft, the segments either cut or entire; calyx superior. 
Plant perennial. This Saxifrage is said to have been found on the Scottish 
mountains many years ago, but the record has not been authenticated. 


2, GOLDEN SAXIFRAGE (Chrysosplénium). 


1. Common Golden Saxifrage (C. oppositifvlium).—Leaves opposite, 
roundish, heart-shaped, with rounded notches; flowers in small umbels. 
Plant perennial. This plant, which flowers from May to July, is common 
by the sides of rivulets, and in wet woods. It is also frequent on some of 


9 


MOSSY SAXIF RAGE 


S. hypuaides 


M.S 


TUFTED 


S platypetala 


S. elongella 


S horta 


ALPINE S 
S ce spitosa 


Pl. 87, 


Bese S palmata 
MOSSY A.S 
S muscoides 
GERANIUM S 
S.serancides 
GOLDEN SAXTFRAGE 
Chrysesplenoum altermfolzuim 
COMMON G.S 


(é oppositioham 


: hs vy 
ae 


UMBELLIFERAX—UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 37 


the highest parts of the Highland mountains, near rills. Though a small 
plant, it often grows in large quantities, and we have seen masses of it on 
bogs at Tunbridge Wells, looking quite beautiful as the sun shone on its 
small clusters of yellow flowers and yellowish-green leaves, so that the plant 
was like a stream of gold among the greener mosses ; while the water-wagtails 
were pecking at its young buds with great delight, and the willow-wren 
singing a song of thankfulness for the loveliness of the heathy waste. This 
plant was renowned among the old herbalists for certain powers which they 
supposed it to possess, of removing melancholy and such maladies as were 
presumed to arise from a disordered spleen. It cannot, however, have any 
powerful medicinal properties, for it is in common use as a salad in the 
Vosges, where the peasant terms it Cresson de roche. Its golden hue is alluded 
to in several of its European names. The French call it Za Dorine. It is 
the Goldmilz of the German ; the Goudveil of the Dutch ; the Gylden steenbrek 
of the Danes; and the Gul stenbrick of the Swedes. 

2. Alternate-leaved Golden Saxifrage (C. alternifélium).—Leaves 
alternate, lower ones somewhat kidney-shaped, upon very long foot-stalks ; 
flowers generally with eight stamens. Plant perennial. This species, which 
is frequent in Scotland, is rather rare on the boggy lands of England. Its 
flat umbels of flowers are of a deep golden yellow, and may be seen from 
April to June. The stems are usually four or five inches in height, but in 
some places where the plant is luxuriant they are much higher, and it there 
overtops its frequent companion, the commoner Golden Saxifrage. The 
foot-stalks of the lower leaves of this species are very long, scarcely less than 
half the length of the stem. The stem, which is erect at the upper part, is 
often prostrate at the base. Sir Wm. Hooker and Dr. Arnott describe the 
common species as of a paler colour than this in all its parts, and it is so 
usually ; but in some places, as in an alder copse on Reigate Heath, mentioned 
by Mr. Luxford, it appears that this is of the paler tint, and that the bright 
yellow-green of its upper leaves, and the pale yellow flowers, contrast there 
with the darker green of C. oppositifolium. 


Order XXXVIII. UMBELLIFERAZ—UMBELLIFEROUS 
TRIBE. 


Calyx superior, 5-toothed, often reduced to a mere margin; petals 5, 
sometimes of very unequal size, the outer being the largest; stamens 5, 
alternate with the petals, curved inwards when in bud; ovary inferior, 
2-celled, crowned by a fleshy disk, which bears the pistils and stamens ; 
styles 2; stigmas small; fruit composed of 2 carpels, or seed-vessels, which 
adhere by their faces to a central stalk, from which they separate below, 
when matured, and are attached by the upper extremity only. These carpels, 
or seed-vessels, are what are inaccurately termed, by persons unacquainted 
with botany, the seeds. They are variously shaped, and each carpel is 
marked by five vertical ridges, with four intermediate ones; these ridges, 
which are in some cases very apparent, can in others hardly be traced. They 
are separated by channels, beneath which are placed minute slender brown 
lines embedded in the skin of the seeds. These are termed witte. When 


38 UMBELLIFER 


magnified, they are found to be tubes filled with oil, and it is the substance 
contained in these cells which gives the pungency to the caraway, coriander, 
and other strongly-flavoured umbelliferous seeds. If the carpel is cut across 
when ripe, the ends of these tubes, or vitte, may be seen by the aid of the 
microscope, looking like little openings, through which a dark oily matter is 
slightly oozing. Each carpel has a single seed, attached by its upper 
extremity, and containing a horny albumen—that is, the white farinaceous 
substance which constitutes the chief bulk of some seeds. 

The flowers of the umbelliferous tribe are usually small, and on short 
stalks, all proceeding from one point, like the rays of an umbrella. Hach 
little cluster is called an umbel. When several of these are arranged around 
the top of a common stalk, they form a compound umbel, the larger being 
called a general, the smaller a partial umbel. 

This large and important order is one in which there is much general 
resemblance in the species. It is easy enough to associate them into one 
large tribe, for even an unpractised botanist easily recognises a plant as 
umbelliferous by its most obvious features and mode of growth. ‘This 
general similarity, however, renders the division into genera and species very 
difficult, as the special distinctions are much less marked than those of other 
flowering plants. These distinctions are not only few in number, but their 
investigation requires patient and careful attention. Not only the flowers, 
leaves, and stems must be looked at, but the fruits, seeds, vitte, the albumen, 
the faces of the halves of the fruit where they touch each other (the 
commissure), all form important distinctions, which must be studied by 
those who would fully understand the order. 

The British Umbelliferz are all herbaceous plants, and until recently the 
tribe was not known to include a shrub or tree; but a shrubby plant of this 
order is now introduced into our gardens, called the Black Parsley. The 
species are natives chiefly of the northern parts of the northern hemisphere, 
occurring in groves, thickets, plains, marshes, meadows, and waste places. 
Their foliage is in general of an unwholesome character, and is very often 
highly poisonous, as in the Hemlock and Dropwort. Notwithstanding this 
the roots and stems of many, and the leaves of a few, are useful as food. 
Such are the roots of the Carrot and Parsnip, the leaves of Parsley, and the 
stems of Celery. The fruits are never noxious, and often furnish an agreeable 
aromatic, as the Coriander and Caraway. A stimulant gum resin exists in 
the stems of several species, which, as in the Asafcetida plant, is a valuable 
medicine. Several even of those umbelliferous plants which are poisonous 
afford valuable remedies to the skilful practitioner. Besides these uses of 
the tribe, it contributes materially, especially in early spring, to the beauty 
of our native vegetation. The finely-divided, elegant foliage is at this 
season of a most tender green hue, and even the small flowers lend a charm 
to the hedges and meadows where they are so numerous. ‘The clusters or 
umbels of blossoms are usually surrounded by a green involucre, and the 
petals are pink, yellow, green, or white, or rarely blue. Our native species 
are mostly white-flowered. About thirteen hundred species are enumerated 
as belonging to this extensive family in its world-wide distribution, and of 
these only about sixty occur in the British Isles. 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 39 


* Umbels simple or imperfect ; albumen not furrowed in front ; fruit without vitte. 


1. Ware Ror (Hydrocdtyle).—Fruit of two flat nearly round carpels, 
each with five slender ridges ; calyx-teeth obsolete ; petals egg-shaped, entire, 
acute. Name from the Greek, hydor, water, and kotyle, a cup, from the place 
of growth, and form of the leaves. 

2. SANICLE (Sanicula).—Flowers in panicled tufts, the outer without 
stamens, the inner without pistils ; fruit egg-shaped, thickly covered with 
hooked prickles ; petals inversely egg-shaped. Name from the Latin, sano, 
to heal, from the supposed virtues of the plant. 

3. Erynco (Hryngium).—Flowers in a dense prickly head ; fruit egg- 
shaped, covered with chaffy scales. Name from the eryngion of Dioscorides. 


** Umbels usually compound ; fruit of two flattened lobes, not prickly or beaked ; 
with or without vitte ; albumen solid. 


4, WATER HEMLOCK (Ciciita).—Fruit of two almost globose carpels, with 
five broad, flattened ridges ; general involucre of very narrow leaves, often 
wanting ; partial involucre of many leaves. Name from the Latin, cicuta, a 
hemlock stalk. 

5. Cetery (Apivm).—Fruit roundish, egg-shaped, of two almost distinct 
carpels, with five slender ridges; involucre none. Name from the Latin of 
this or some allied plant. 

6. ParsLEy (Petroselinum).—-Fruit egg-shaped; carpels each with five 
slender ridges; general involucre of few, partial of many leaves. Name 
from the Greek, petros, a rock, and selinon, parsley. 

7. HonewortT (Trinia).—Fruit egg-shaped ; carpels with five prominent 
ribs ; flowers having stamens and pistils on different plants. Named from 
Dr. Trinius, a Russian botanist. 

8. MarsH-wort (Heloscididiwm).—Fruit egg-shaped, or oblong ; carpels 
each with five slender prominent ridges; general involucre none ; partial of 
many leaves. Name from the Greek, /elos, a marsh, and skiadion, an umbel. 

9. STONE PARSLEY (Sison).—Fruit egg-shaped ; carpels with five slender 
ridges ; petals broad, deeply notched, with an inflexed point ; involucres of 
many leaves. 

10. GOUT-WEED (A%gopédium).—Fruit oblong; carpels with five slender’ 
ridges ; involucre none. Name in Greek signifying goat’s-foot, from some 
fancied similarity of the leaves. 

11. Caraway (Carum).—Fruit oblong; carpels of five slender ridges ; 
general involucre none, or rarely of one leaf, partial none. Name from 
Caria, a country of Asia Minor. 

12. EARTH-NUT (Linium).—Fruit oblong, crowned with the conical base 
of the erect styles ; carpels with five slender, blunt ridges; general involucre 
none, partial of few leaves. Name from the Greek, bownos, a hill, from its 
chief place of growth. 

13. BURNET SAXIFRAGE (Pimpinélla).—Fruit oblong, crowned with the 
swollen base of the reflexed styles; carpels with five slender ridges, and 
furrows between ; general involucre wanting, or rarely of one leaf; partial 
involucre none. Name of doubtful origin. 

14. WaTER PARSNIP (Siwm).—Fruit nearly globose; carpels with five 


40 . UMBELLIFERZ® 


slender, blunt ridges ; involucres of several leaves. Name from the Celtic, 
Siw, water. 

15. Hare’s Ear (Bupledrum).—Fruit oblong, crowned with the flat base 
of the styles; carpels with five prominent ridges; partial involucre very 
large. Name from the Greek, bows, an ox, and pleuron, a rib, from the 
ribbed leaves of some of the species. 


** * Umbels compound ; fruit not prickly, nor beaked, nor. flattened ; vittee 
between the ribs, 

16. WATER Dropwort ((Hndnthe).—F ruit egg-shaped, cylindrical, crowned 
with the long straight styles; carpels with five blunt corky ridges ; flowers 
somewhat rayed, those of the centre only being fertile. Name from the 
Greek, oinos, wine, and anthos, a flower, from the scent of the blossom. 

17. Foou’s PARSLEY (4thiisa).—Fruit nearly globose ; carpels with five 
thick-keeled ridges, and crowned with the reflexed styles ; partial involucre 
of three leaves, all on one side, usually drooping. Name from the Greek, 
aitho, to burn, from its acridity. 

18. FENNEL (Feniculum).—Fruit oblong ; carpels with five bluntly-keeled 
ridges ; involucre none. Name from the Latin, fenwm, hay, from its odour. 

19. MEADOW SAXIFRAGE (Séseli).—Fruit oval or oblong, crowned with 
the reflexed styles ; carpels with five prominent blunt ribs ; partial involucre 
of many leaves. Name given by the Greeks to some allied plant. 

20. LovaGE (Ligisticum).—Fruit elliptical ; carpels with five sharp, some- 
what winged ridges ; involucres, both general and partial, of several leaves. 
Name from Liguria, where the cultivated species abounds. 

21. PEPPER SAXIFRAGE (Sildus).—Fruit oval; carpels with five sharp, 
somewhat winged ribs; petals scarcely notched ; general involucre of one or 
two leaves, partial of several. Name of doubtful origin. 

22. SpPIGNEL (Méum).—Fruit elliptical; carpels with five sharp winged 
ridges ; petals tapering at both ends; general involucre of few, partial of 
many leaves. Name given by the Greeks to this or some similar plant. 

23. SAMPHIRE (Crithmum).—Fruit elliptical; carpels spongy, with five 
sharp winged ridges ; leaves of both general and partial involucres numerous. 
Name from the Greek, krithé, barley, which grain the fruit was thought to 
resemble. 

** ** Umbels compound ; fruit of two flattened carpels, which are united by 
their faces, not prickly or beaked ; with or without vitte. 

24, ANGELICA.—Fruit with three sharp ridges at the back of each carpel, 
and two at the sides, expanding into an even border; general involucre of 
few, partial of many leaves. Named angelic, from its medicinal qualities. 

25. Hoa’s FENNEL (Peucédanum). —Fruit flat, with broad border ; carpels 
with three elevated ribs on the back, and two side ones spreading into broad 
wings ; partial involucre of many leaves. Name from peuce, a pine-tree, and 
dono, a gift, on account of the resin which exudes from some of the species. 

26. Parsnip (Pastindcw).—Fruit very flat, with a broad border ; carpels 
with three slender ridges on the back, and two near the outer edge of the 
margin ; general and partial involucré usually of one leaf. Name from 


pastus, pasture. 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 41 


27. Cow Parsnip (Herdcleum).—Fruit very flat, with a broad border ; 
carpels with three ribs on the back, and two distant marginal ones ; general 
involucre falling early, partial of many leaves. Named from Hercules, who 
is said to have used this or some similar plant medicinally. 

28. Hart-wort (Tordijlium).—Fruit flat, with a broad thick border, either 
waved or notched ; carpels with three faintly-marked ribs, and two distant 
marginal ones. Name given by the Greeks, and thought to signify “lathe” 
and “turn,” because the seeds look as if turned in a lathe. 


*** * * Uimbels compound ; fruit globose, not prickly ; carpels scarcely separating, 
scarcely ribbed, and without vitte ; albumen solid. 


29. CoRIANDER (Coridndrum).—Fruit globose ; carpels cohering ; general 
involucre none ; partial on one side. Named from Greek, koris, a bug, from 
the unpleasant odour. 


** ** * * Umbels compound, fruit short and thick, not prickly nor beaked ; some- 
what flattened, with or without vitte, albumen furrowed. 

30. HEMLOCK (Conéum).—Fruit broadly egg-shaped ; carpels with five 
prominent waved ridges; general involucre of few leaves, partial of three 
leaves on one side. Name, the Greek word for the plant. 

31. BLADDER-SEED (Physospérmum).—Fruit of two globose kidney-shaped 
carpels, with five slender ridges ; involucres both general and partial, of 1—5 
leaves. Name from the Greek physa, a bladder, and sperma, a seed. 

32. ALEXANDERS (Smyrnium).—Fruit of two kidney-shaped carpels, each 
having five prominent ridges. Name from the Greek smyrna, myrrh, from 
the scent of some of the species. 


+e * ** * Umbels compound ; fruit oblong ; usually more or less beaked ; with 
or without vitte. 


33, SHEPHERD’S-NEEDLE (Scdndix).—Fruit contracted at the sides, with a 
very long beak; carpels with five blunt ridges ; general involucre none, or of 
one leaf ; partial of several leaves, longer than the flowers. Name, the Greek 
name of the Chervil. 

34. BEAKED PARSLEY (Anthriscus).— Fruit narrowed below the short 
beak; carpels without ridges; beak with five ridges; general involucre 
none ; partial of several leaves. Name, the Greek name for this or some 
allied plant. 

35. CHERVIL (Cherophyllum).—Fruit contracted at the sides, with a short 
beak ; carpels with five blunt ridges; partial involucre of several leaves. 
Name, in Greek, signifying a pleasant leaf, from the perfume of some species. 

36. CIcELY (Myrrhis).—Fruit contracted at the sides, with a deep furrow 
between the carpels; carpels with five sharply-keeled ridges; general in- 
volucre wanting, partial of many leaves. Name from the Greek myrrha, on 
account of its fragrance. — 


kee EE * Fruit not beaked, clothed with prickles, or with a prickly involucre, 
vittee two or more together. 
37. CARROT (Daiicus).—Fruit slightly flattened ; carpels united by their 
faces, oblong, with bristly primary ridges, secondary ridges equal, winged 
11.—6 


49 UMBELLIFERA 


with a close row of spines; general involucre very long, often pinnatifid. 
Name, the Greek name of the plant. 

38. Bur ParsLey (Cazicalis).—Fruit slightly flattened; carpels united 
by thin narrow edges, ridges bristly with 1—3 rows of hooked prickles 
between. Name, the Greek name of the plant. 

39. HEDGE PARSLEY (Torilis).—Fruit slightly contracted at the sides ; 
ridges of the carpels bristly, with numerous prickles; general involucre 
wanting; partial of many leaves. Name of doubtful origin. 

40. PrickLy SAMPHIRE (Echindphora).—Fruit egg-shaped in a prickly 
receptacle, and with a prickly involucre ; carpels with five ribs. Name from 
the Greek echinos, a hedgehog, and phero, to bear, from the prickly nature of 
the fruit. 


* Umbels simple or irregular 
1. WurrTE-rot (Hydrocétyle) 


Common White-rot (//. vulgdris).—Leaves circular, with central 
stalk, somewhat lobed and crenated; heads of about five flowers; root 
perennial. The large leaves of this plant are often to be seen lying on their 
creeping stems covering large spots on the surface of the mossy bog. ‘They 
are bright green, smooth and glossy ; and sometimes an inch and a half 
across. This plant flowers in May and June, but the blossoms are so small 
that it is better known by its leaves than by the pinkish-green petals of the 
little corollas. Sometimes the cluster consists of but two or three flowers, 
and indeed they are not sufficiently numerous at any time to suggest the 
idea of an umbel. The plants in this first division of the umbelliferous 
plants, comprehending this and the two following genera, are very unlike, 
in their general appearance, all those which follow. They are scarcely 
umbelliferous, but as the structure of the individual flower and fruit agrees 
with that of plants of that character, they are classed with them. 

The Common White-rot was in former days considered very prejudicial 
to sheep, and several of the names by which it is known in country places 
convey this opinion. It is called Sheep-killing Penny-grass, Sheep’s Bane, 
Marsh Penny-wort, and Flowk-wort. Sheep are now well known to leave it 
untouched, but as the liver-fluke (Distoma hepatica), often so injurious to 
these animals, is found on marshy lands, where this and some other acrid 
plants abound, the malady was erroneously ascribed to the vegetation. The 
French call the White-rot Hydrocotylé, the Germans Vassernahel, and the 
Spaniards term it Sombrera de aqua, probably from the form of its leaves, 
which is something like that of the Sombreros, which they wear on their heads 
to shade them from the sun. To its round leaf, slightly depressed in the 
centre, the plant owes its old name of Water-can. An Eastern species, 
H. asuitica, is commonly used in India as a culinary vegetable, as well as a 
medicine ; and the juice of H. wmbelldta is also administered in small doses. 
The flavour is said to be agreeable, and the odour aromatic. Lamarck 
describes a species of White-rot, called the Gum-bearer, now termed Bolaa 
glebaria. A quantity of semi-transparent gum oozes from its stem, like that 
produced by some fruit-trees. 


te 


>A, | 2 a |\ 
CD oer 


\ g 
WHITE -ROT +. FIELD ERYNGO 
Hydrocotyle vuléaris . 2 9 1B; 
WOOD SANICLE . 
Samicnla europea . 
SEA HOLLY 


Eryngéum maritimum 


oO 


campestre 
5 WATER HEMLOCK 

Cicuta virosa 
6. WILD CELERY 


Apimm graveolens. 


j 
Gs 7 


re Sis Diss ay 
a 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 43 


2. SANICLE (Sanécula). 

Wood Sanicle (S. ewropea).—Leaves mostly from the root, palmate, 
with the lobes three-cleft and cut; fertile flowers sessile; root perennial. 
The flowers of this plant form rather a panicle than an umbel, not having 
that regular arrangement around the top of the stem which is one of the 
usual characteristics of the umbelliferous tribe ; and some of the flower-stalks 
are long, and others short. The stem is about a foot, or a foot and a half 
high, and the large leaves of deep dull green. Nor is there any brightness 
of hue on any part of the plant, though its form is exceedingly elegant. It 
is frequent in woods, especially near streams, or in very moist places ; and is 
in flower during May and June. The blossoms are small, of dull white when 
expanded, but while young, tinted more or less with chocolate colour or pink. 
Its name, Sanicula, significant of its healing virtues, has its synonym in most 
of the countries of Europe, and may indicate that the old English proverb, 
“He that hath Sanicle, needeth no surgeon,” would have found as ready a 
credence in other countries as in ours. Gerarde says of it, “It is used in 
potions which are called vulnerarie potions, or wound drinks, which make 
whole and sound all inward wounds and outward hurts.” There is some 
slight bitterness and astringency in the leaves, as well as some degree of 
acridity ; and it is probable that its application to wounds would do more 
harm than good. Sir J. E. Smith says that it partakes of that virose 
acrimony which is found in most umbelliferous plants growing on moist fat 
soils. Its flavour is not only disagreeable, but leaves a burning sensation on 
the tongue. The French call this plant La Sanicle, and the Germans Der 
Sanikel. It is the Sanicola of the Italians, and the Sanzkel of the Dutch. 

3. ERYNGO (Eryngium). 

1. Sea Eryngo, or Sea Holly (£. maritimum).—Root-leaves roundish, 
plaited, spiny, stalked, upper ones palmate, lobed, clasping the stalk ; leaves 
of the involucre 3-lobed; scales of the receptacle 3-cleft ; root perennial. 
This plant is well called Sea Holly. Noone could look at its thick, rigid, 
spiny leaves without thinking of those of our well-known evergreen. Their 
colour, however, is very different ; for it is not dark and glossy, but of sea- 
green glaucous hue, beautifully veined with white. The flowers look some- 
thing like thistles ; and it is well described by the poet— 


‘“* Kryngo, to the threat’ning storm, 
With dauntless pride uprears 
His azure crest and warrior form, 
And points his spears.” 


The small blue blossoms grow in a dense head, on a scaly receptacle. They 
are produced in July and August. The stem is about two feet high, and the 
seeds are aromatic. 

This handsome plant is not unfrequent on the sandy shores of England ; 
and is often sold among the shells and other marine curiosities brought by 
boys to the beach. It is by no means a fragile flower, and preserves its form 
and appearance so well throughout the winter, that a good bouquet for that 
season may be made of this plant, mingled with carline thistle, sea lavender, 
and sea-side grasses. It is very tough in texture, and difficult to gather ; 

6—2 


44 UMBELLIFERA 


and the large, fleshy, somewhat bitter roots penetrate the hot sand to some 
depth. These roots were formerly much prized as a sweetmeat, and believed 
to have many tonic properties. The oldest writers on plants, like Dioscorides, 
praised their restorative virtues; and in Queen Elizabeth’s time, when 
prepared with sugar, they were called Kissing Comfits. Shakspere represents 
Falstaff as referring to them by this name. Boerhaave considered them 
highly tonic, and they are still prized by the Arabs. The candied roots were 
introduced into general use by Robert Buxton, an apothecary ; and the town 
of Colchester was long famous for this sweetmeat. Even as lately as the 
year 1836, an immense quantity was sold, in consequence of the inhabitants 
of that town having presented a box of the Eryngo roots to a member of the 
Royal Family who passed through the place. The root is little used now, 
but is still recommended in some cases, by respectable authorities, as a good 
medicine. 

The young tops of the Sea Holly are eaten in Sweden like asparagus ; 
and Belon says in his “Singularities,” that the people of Crete eat them as 
food. In the United States, the roots of an aquatic species, H. aqudticum, 
are very much used medicinally ; and those of EF. fetidum are in Jamaica 
esteemed a febrifuge. Our seaside species is not common on the shores of 
Scotland generally, though more frequent on the Western coast. It occurs 
in Ireland and the Channel Islands, and is a common plant on the shores of 
several European countries. It is called in France Panicaut ; in Germany, 
Krausdistel ; and in Holland, Kruisdistel. It is the Hringio of the Italians, 
and the Cardo corredor of the Spaniards. 

2. Field Eryngo (£. campéstre).—Root-leaves somewhat ternate, lobes 
pinnatifid ; stem-leaves clasping, twice pinnatifid, all with spiny teeth ; leaves 
of the involucre spinous ; scales of the receptacle entire. Plant perennial. 
This rare species much resembles the Sea Holly, but is more bushy, taller, 
and more slender. It formerly grew in sandy fields at Stonehouse, in 
Devonshire ; but is now extinct there, as it also is on a spot near Daventry, 
where it once grew. It is believed to be truly wild only in Kent, and to 
have been so formerly in Suffolk ; in the other stations it is thought to have 
been introduced with ballast. The petals are purplish, or white, and may be 
seen on the chaffy receptacle in July and August. Its roots, when dried and 
powdered, are said to form the chief ingredient of a medicine celebrated in 
Spain as a remedy against the bites of serpents. Gerarde said of our seaside 
species that it was “good for such as were bitten by any venomous animal.” 

* * Umbels compound ; fruit of two flattened lobes, neither prickly nor beaked. 
4, WATER-HEMLOCK (Ciciita). 

Cowbane, or Water-Hemlock (C. virésa).—Stem hollow, branched ; 
lower leaves on long stalks, pinnate; upper ones twice ternate ; umbels 
stalked. Plant perennial. Like many of our umbelliferous plants which 
grow in the water, this herb is highly poisonous, and various instances of its 
fatal effects are on record. Some animals, as sheep, goats, and horses, eat it 
with impunity, but to cows it proves deleterious. Cattle are usually guided 
by their instincts to the selection of plants which afford them wholesome and 
nutritious food ; and when this Water-Hemlock is fully developed, and has 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 45 


its strong and peculiar odour, they will not touch it. In the early spring, 
however, the scent is faint, and kine will sometimes eat it among the green 
herbage of the pasture, and suffer much from doing so. In the moist 
meadows of Sweden, where it is abundant, the horned cattle were subject 
every spring to a sickness and mortality, of which the cause was long un- 
known. Linneus, with his usual sagacity, detected it, and recommended the 
owners of these animals to keep them on the upland pastures during the 
spring, bringing them, when the Cowbane was fully matured, into the low- 
land meadows. The advice was taken, and a great annual loss to the grazier 
thus prevented by the science and observation of the botanist. The flat- 
topped umbels of minute white flowers appear in July and August. The 
Spotted Cowbane of North America (C. maculdta) is said to possess the 
medicinal properties of Hemlock, and is used in that country for the same 
purposes. The French call the Water-Hemlock, La Cicutaire ; the Germans, 
Die Wiitherick. It is termed in Holland Water Scheerling. 


5. CELERY (Apium). 


Smallage, or Wild Celery (4. gravéolens).—Stem furrowed and 
branched ; leaves shining, pinnate or ternate, lower leaves on long stalks ; 
flowers in terminal or axillary umbels. Plant biennial. Difficult of deter- 
mination as plants of the Umbelliferous tribes usually are, the Wild Celery 
is immediately recognised, whether in its fresh or dried state, by its strong 
odour, so exactly resembling that of the well-known garden vegetable. It is 
the origin of that useful edible plant, but when growing wild, is not only 
acrid and disagreeable, but is believed to be, if near fresh waters, highly 
deleterious. Climate and soil, however, often affect the wholesomeness of 
plants, and Wild Celery is eaten in some countries. In the melancholy ad- 
ventures of the missionaries, who with Captain Gardiner perished from want 
at Tierra del Fuego, the generous men who risked their lives that they 
might carry the Truth to the natives were glad to feed on the Wild Celery 
which they found, and which the surgeon who accompanied the expedition 
did not seem to find unwholesome. Our Wild Celery grows commonly about 
the ditches or rivers, or moist marshy lands, of England, especially near the 
sea. The stem is usually one or two feet high, and the clusters of small 
white flowers are in blossom from June to September. ‘The umbels are often 
sessile ; the glossy leaves are of bright green. 

The Garden Celery is rendered wholesome by blanching. This must be 
done by shielding the plant from light. The office of the leaves of plants 
is to expose the sap, which they derive from the stem, to the light and air, 
and these enable them to develop their green colour. The necessity for light 
and air in colouring plants is apparent from the circumstance that plants 
turn towards the sun, seeking light, as well as from the fact, which every 
observing person must have noticed, that leaves which grow in comparative 
darkness are of paler green. It is thus that we see the green plant in some 
crowded court of London looking paler than its compeer in the country 
would do; and thus, that when some stray branch of ivy finds its way into 
the tower or belfry, and grows there, it is less green and glossy than the 
verdant ivy which encircles the outer wall. Professor Lindley has explained 


46 UMBELLIFERA 


the effect of blanching so well, that we cannot do better than present his 
words to our readers. “If,” he says, “you cause a plant, or any part of a 
plant, to grow in total darkness, it will be entirely destitute of greenness ; 
or, in other words, the substance of the plant will remain of its original 
yellowish white, because no green matter can be formed but by the action of 
light ; and if a part already green is kept for a long time in darkness it will 
become yellowish-white, in consequence of all its green being destroyed by 
the peculiar action of the atmosphere upon plants in darkness. This is the 
explanation of blanching. But mere loss of colour is not the only conse- 
quence of plants being kept in the dark. Poisons, when it is the nature of 
the plants to yield poisons, are all formed in leaves by the action of light ; 
the absence of this wonderful agent will therefore prevent the formation of 
poisons, as well as the formation of green colour; and hence blanching 
renders poisonous plants harmless. Thus in the Celery, but a small portion 
only of the leaves is exposed to the light ; the whole of the stem and of the 
lower part of the leaves is buried in the earth ; the small quantity of noxious 
matter that might be formed by the few leaves which are allowed to bask in 
the sun, has to pass down the buried stalks of the leaves before it can reach 
the stem, where it would be laid up; but the leaf-stalk of the Celery is very 
long, and anything which has to filter from the upper part of such a leaf to 
its bottom, has to take a long journey, in the course of which it is constantly 
under the destroying influence of darkness ; so that before it can reach the 
stem it will all have perished.” 

The cultivated Celery often attains a very large size; and a head of this 
plant, which was reared in the neighbourhood of Manchester, is stated to 
have weighed nine pounds, inclusive of the roots and leaves, and to have 
measured four feet and a half in height. There are several varieties in the 
kitchen-garden, as the red and white upright kinds, and the more hardy 
turnip-rooted Celery, or Celeriac, of which the root is the only edible part. 
This is much prized in Germany, either as a boiled vegetable, or sliced and 
eaten cold with vinegar, when it makes an excellent salad. Though rarely 
cultivated in this country, it is imported occasionally from Hamburgh. 

The blanched footstalks of the leaves are the portions of the Celery 
usually seen at our tables; but the Italians use the unblanched leaves in 
soups ; and the seed is so strongly flavoured, that it is sometimes substituted 
in cooking for the succulent stalks. 


6. ParsLEy (Petroselinum). 


1. Common Parsley (P. sativwm).—Leaves thrice pinnate, shining ; 
lower leaflets egg-shaped, somewhat wedge-shaped, 3-cleft, and toothed ; 
upper ones lanceolate, nearly entire ; partial involucre threadlike. Plant 
biennial. This well-known garden herb is not truly wild, but is naturalized 
on rocks and old walls in many parts of the kingdom, especially in the south- 
west of England. It is worthy of note that the Parsley is nowhere known 
as an indigenous plant, but only as a cultivated herb, or a naturalized escape 
from cultivation. This fact appears to show that it has been grown by man 
for so long a period that it has become widely different from the wild form 
and the relationship is no longer recognisable. Besides being used as a 


fx 


be 


RU/Z 


We 
TAT 
Alp 


1 . COMMON PAR SLEY 
Petrosehnom sativum - 


-CORN PARSLEY 


5.LEAST MARSHWORT . 


P, segetman Hf intmdatimn . 


.HONEWORT 6. STONE PARSLEY. 
Tima vulgaris Saison amomnm 
PROCUMBENT MARSHWORT 


7. GOUT WEED 


Helosciadium nodiflormn 2 gopodiam podagr aria 


Pl. 39 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 47 


seasoning plant, it is often sown among pasture grasses, to prevent maladies 
incidental to sheep. Some years since it was extensively planted in fields in 
Hampshire, for this purpose, with success ; and Mortimer, in his work on 
“ Husbandry,” mentions the cultivation of this plant in Buckinghamshire, 
as a preventive to disease in these animals. It is said, when eaten by 
sheep, to impart an agreeable flavour to their flesh. Hares and rabbits 
are very fond of its foliage, and will be attracted from a great distance 
by a large quantity of Parsley. In places where these animals are 
numerous it is almost impossible to preserve the herb from their depre- 
dations. In our country the different varieties of Parsley are used very 
generally for flavouring dishes, and it has been suggested that the curled 
variety only should be sown in gardens, because the ordinary form of the 
plant is so similar to that dangerous weed, the Fool’s Parsley (Athisa 
cyndpium), that mistakes have been made between the two plants, and 
melancholy consequences have ensued. ‘This noxious plant often infests 
gardens, and, when growing with the cultivated herb, a careless person 
might gather the one for the other. The leaves, however, are differently 
formed, and of darker, duller green hue; and if bruised they emit an 
odour very different from that of the Parsley. When in flower the plants 
are easily distinguished, the Fool’s Parsley having an involucre of three 
long, narrow, sharp-pointed leaflets, hanging down on one side, under each 
partial umbel ; while in the Common Parsley, there is usually only one leaflet 
in the general umbel, and in the partial umbel the few leaflets are as fine as 
hairs. Professor Burnett remarks, “ Parsley affords one, among many proofs, of 
the impossibility of dividing esculent from poisonous plants, for although 
eatable and innocuous to man, it is said to be a deadly poison to parrots.” 

The old herbalists regarded this plant as a valuable remedy against 
several diseases, and said that its seed was “effectual against the venom of 
any poisonous creature, and the danger that cometh to them that have the 
lethargy.” The time of its introduction into England is uncertain. It has 
been said to have been brought into this country about the middle of the six- 
teenth century, from Sardinia, where it is wild. It received from Dioscorides 
its name of Petroselinum, and the plant was given to him who overcame in 
the Grecian games. “Sometimes,” says an old writer, ‘“ Victours had- 
garlondes of it, as Isodore saith Hercules made him fyrste garlondes of this 
hearbe.” Another old author speaks of one in his day, who “would in a 
braverie wear Parsley in his hat.” The French call the plant Le Persil ; it 
is Die Petersille of the Germans ; and the Petroselino of the Italians. 

An anecdote related some years since shows a use for which Parsley-seed 
was employed during the Middle Ages. It was customary in those times to 
flavour cheese with various herbs, as thyme and fennel. It is said of 
Charlemagne, that travelling once without any retinue, he arrived at a 
Bishop’s palace on a fast day. The Bishop had no fare fitted to regale a 
monarch, but placed before him some bread and some choice cheese. The 
King did not appear to relish the appearance of the cheese, and from time to 
time picked out, with his knife, several small specks which he supposed to be 
detects in the food, but which were in fact the seeds of Parsley, which had 
been placed in the cheese to give it flavour. The Bishop ventured to hint 


48 UMBELLIFERAL 


to the King that he was depriving the cheese of its greatest excellence. On 
this the monarch ate it freely, and liked it so well that he ended by asking 
the prelate to send him annually a supply of the curd so flavoured ; and, lest 
the merchants should accidentally pack cheeses which were without the 
parsley seeds, he directed that the cheeses should always be cut in two 
pieces, in order that the seeds might be seen, while the halves were after- 
wards to be fastened together with a skewer. 

2. Corn Parsley (P. ségetwm).—Lower leaves pinnate ; leaflets nearly 
sessile, egg-shaped, lobed, and serrated; upper leaves entire or 3-cleft ; 
umbels very irregular ; fruit strongly ribbed. Plant biennial. This is the 
truly Wild Parsley, easily distinguished by its slender, branched, tough, and 
wiry stem, which is from one to two feet high, and by its small pinnated 
leaves. In August and September it has umbels of little whitish flowers, the 
rays of the umbel being few and unequal in length. The few small stem- 
leaves are all that are to be seen in autumn, as those ef the root soon wither 
away. The schoolboy gathers this, with various other somewhat similar 
plants, all of which he calls Wild Parsley, for the food of his tame rabbits ; 
but its scanty foliage does not furnish a large supply. 


7. HoNEwort (7rinia). 


Common Honewort (7. wulgdris).—Leaves thrice pinnate and shining ; 
leaflets very narrow, often threadlike ; involucre none, or of one leaf ; ribs 
of the fruit blunt; root perennial. This is a rare plant, inhabiting dry lime- 
stone hills, and is found on St. Vincent’s Rocks, near Bristol, and a few other 
spots in this kingdom. The white flowers appear in May and June, and 
have their stamens and pistils in different blossoms, and on separate plants. 
The stem is branched and erect, about six or eight inches high ; the root is 
spindle-shaped, and crowned with the remnants of former leaves. The 
herbage is glaucous green. 


8 Marsuwort (fHelosciddium). 


-]. Procumbent Marshwort (H. nodiflérwm).—Stem procumbent at 
the base and rooting; leaves pinnate; leaflets egg-shaped, unequally and 
bluntly serrated ; umbels opposite to the leaves. Plant perennial. Varieties 
occur of this herb, in one of which the umbels are longer than the flower- 
stalks, or nearly sessile, and the leaflets bluntly serrate; and in the other 
the umbels are shorter than the flower-stalks, the leaflets smaller, and more 
sharply serrated. The streams and rivulets which wander through our 
green meadows or woods, or lie beneath the shadowing hedgerows, have 
usually a wealth of vegetation all their own. This is a plant which he who 
well knows these spots always expects to find there ; its branches overtopping 
the plants which lie on the flat surface of the shallow waters, or growing on 
the moist soil of their margin. Country people call it Fool’s Water-cress, 
and doubtless it may be sometimes gathered carelessly instead of that whole- 
some salad herb; for although when in flower it is quite unlike the Water- 
cress, yet when out of bloom it has some slight resemblance to it. Its 
pointed and serrated leaves are a good distinction ; and it has its distinct 
features in the umbelliferous growth of its flowers, its hollow stem, and its 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 49 
leafstalk sheathing around. These latter distinctions never characterize 
cruciferous plants. The flowers are small and white, appearing in July and 
August ; and the stem is sometimes two feet long. Though generally 
regarded as a plant containing poisonous properties, yet it was recommended 
by Dr. Withering to be taken, either alone or with milk, as an alterative 
medicine. The French call the plant Berle; the Germans, Wassermeek ; the 
Dutch, Vatereppe ; the Italians, Sto. 

2. Least Marshwort (fH. inunddtum).—Stem creeping ; lower leaves 
finely divided into hair-like segments ; upper ones pinnatifid. Root peren- 
nial. This plant, which occurs in ponds that are left dry during summer, 
has stems but a few inches long, and umbels with only two rays of very 
small white flowers, which are produced in June and July. These and the 
upper leaves are the only parts of the plant seen above the shallow waters. 


9. BASTARD STONE-PARSLEY (ison). 


Hedge Bastard Stone-Parsley (S. amdémum).—Stem erect ; lower 
leaves pinnate ; leaflets oblong, cut, and serrated; upper leaflets cut into 
narrow segments. This Parsley, though rare in Scotland, is found not 
unfrequently in England, in damp chalky places, on borders of woods, or 
under hedges. ‘The little cream-coloured flowers expand in August. The 
umbels of flowers are very small. The whole plant has a very offensive 
odour, especially if bruised. The fruit, which is egg-shaped, is pungent and 
aromatic. This plant is the Berle aromatique of the French; the Germans 
eall it Amomlein. 

10. GOUT-WEED (Aigopdédium). 


Common Gout-weed, or Bishop’s-weed (4. podagrdria).—Stem 
erect, furrowed; leaves two or three times ternate ; leaflets egg-shaped, 
pointed, and acutely serrated, unequal at the base. Plant perennial. The 
gardener who has shady or damp places in his garden is cften much troubled 
with this plant ; for its creeping root will take such hold of the soil, that it 
is very difficult of eradication. It has large dark-green leaves and white 
flowers, and soon grows, if left untouched, to a foot or a foot and a half high. 
It is common in damp spots and waste places throughout the ccuntry, 
although it is not found far from human habitations. Though a disagreeable 
weed, it was doubtless introduced by the monks, and had an old repute as a 
cure for gout, for which malady the German physicians are said still to 
prescribe it. The creeping root is pungent and aromatic, with some 
acrimony, and this is the portion of the plant employed. Culpepper says, 
“Neither is it to be supposed Goutweed hath its name for nothing ; but upon 
experiment to heal the gout and sciatica; as also joint-aches and other cold 
griefs. The very bearing of it about one easeth the pain of the gout, and 
defends him that bears it from the disease.” The plant also was called Herb 
Gerrard and Asheweed. The small white flowers should be sought from June 
to August. 


1]. CARAWAY (Cdrum). 


1. Common Caraway (C. cérwi).—Partial involucre none; general 
none, or one-leaved ; leaves twice pinnate ; leaflets cut into slender segments. 
11.—7 


50 UMBELLIFERA 


Plant biennial. This is a rare plant in our meadows and pastures ; nor is it 
indigenous, though found in various parts of England and Scotland. The 
flowers, which are white, grow in rather large umbels, on a stem one or two 
feet high, in June. The aromatic carpels, known by the name of caraway- 
seeds, are too often used in cookery, confectionery, liqueurs, and medicines, 
to need any description, and the plant is often cultivated on their account. 
The slightly pungent leaves are sometimes used as ingredients in salads, or, 
like those of parsley, for seasoning dishes ; and the root, which is spindle- 
shaped, is sometimes eaten like the parsnip, but it partakes slightly of the 
peculiar flavour of the carpels, which would render it unpleasant to some 
palates, when eaten with cooked meat. According to the old writers, this 
root is “ pleasant and comfortable, and helpeth digestion ;’ one of them says 
that the root, “eaten as men eat parsneps, strengthens the stomachs of 
ancient people exceedingly, and they need not make a whole meal of them 
neither.” He adds that the Caraway should be planted in every garden. 
The Caraway comfits were also considered as an excellent stomachic when 
eaten fasting, and were at least a more agreeable one than many others 
recommended by these “simplers.” They were believed, too, to sharpen the 
eyesight. The French call the Caraway plant, Carw ; the Germans term it, 
Kiimmel ; and the Italians, Carwi. 

2. Tuberous Caraway (C. bullocistanum).—Leaves thrice pinnate, 
with very slender leaflets; general and partial involucres of many thread- 
like leaves ; root tuberous and perennial. This is a rare plant in most parts 
of this kingdom, and is found chiefly in chalky fields of Hertfordshire, 
Cambridgeshire, Buckingham and Bedfordshire, though occurring on some 
of these in great abundance. The white flowers appear in June and July. 

3. Whorled Caraway (C. verticilldtwm).—Leaves mostly from the 
root, pinnate, and cut into slender thread-like segments; umbels few, 
terminal ; general and partial involucres very small. Root perennial. The 
foliage of this plant is not truly whorled, but the segments of the leaflets 
surround the leaf-stalk in a spreading direction, so as to look like a whorl. 
The slender stem is about a foot high ; and the small white flowers appear 
in July and August. It is a local plant, and occurs chiefly along the 
western counties from Argyll southward. It is also found in the Channel 
Islands, and about Killarney, in Ireland. 


12. EARTH-NUT (Binium). 


Common Earth-nut (B. flexuésum).—Leaves of the stem few, nearly 
sessile, with linear segments ; general involucre of 1—3 leaves, partial more 
numerous ; both involucres sometimes wanting ; styles erect. Plant perennial, 
This is a pretty and common plant, bearing its terminal umbels of white 
flowers in May and June. There is something elegant and graceful in its 
form, and the slight stem is a foot or more high, having a few leaves cut 
into slender segments. The tubers of the Earth-nut are sweet and esculent ; 
they fatten pigs exceedingly, and being eagerly sought after and rooted up 
by these animals, the plant is in many country places called Pig-nut. A large 
amount of farinaceous and nutritive matter exists in these roots; and in 
time of famine they have been useful in furnishing food for man. Though 


= 


Ww 


COMMON CARAWAY 

Carum carni 
TUBEROUS c 

C bnlbocastamnm . 
WHORLED c. 

C.verticillatum . 


Pl. 90, 


EARTH NUT 
Bonrom flexuosum . 
BURNET SAXIFRAGE 
Poupinella saxifraga . 
GREATER B. §. 
Pmagna . 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 51 


we cannot praise their flavcur very highly, yet they are much liked by 
country children, who eat them in their uncooked condition as they would 
a chestnut, which fruit they are not unlike in flavour. The Italians and 
Spaniards both call the plant Castagno di terra ; and it is the Terre noix of the 
French, the ELrdnuss of the Germans, and the Ardnoot of the Dutch. The old 
writers recommended the powdered root as a remedy for cough. They called 
the tubers Ground-nuts and Kipper-nuts. 


13. BURNET SAXIFRAGE (Pimpinélla). 


1. Common Burnet Saxifrage (P. swxifraga).—Root-leaves pinnate ; 
leaflets roundish, sharply serrate or cut; stem-leaves twice pinnate, with 
lmear segments. Plant perennial. ‘The lower leaves of this herb are so like 
those of the Common Burnet, as to deserve the allusion to that plant con- 
tained in its name; those of the root are on long stalks, and those of the 
stem are often very much divided. ‘The stem is round, one or two feet high, 
the flower-stalks usually smocth, though occasionally downy. The small 
greenish-white flowers appear in July and August. 

The Burnet Saxifrage is common on dry pastures, and is often to be seen 
among the turf of those rounded hills which so often occur in our chalk 
districts. It is remarkable for varying much in the shape of its foliage, 
owing to some circumstances of soil or season ; hence the earlier botanists 
classed as distinct species forms now known to be mere varieties ; and we 
had formerly P. major, P. minor, and P. dissectum. The root, which is of an 
astringent nature, is very pungent and even acrid in flavour. Country 
people consider it a cure for the toothache ; and a decoction of the plant has 
also been long in use as a cosmetic, and probably would not be altogether 
useless in the removal of freckles and sunburn. This root is much infested 
by a species of coccus, from which a red colouring matter may be procured. 
The French call the plant Le Boucage ; it is the Pimpinella blanca of the 
Spaniards, and is termed by the Germans Kleine bibernel. 

2. Greater Burnet Saxifrage (P. mdgna).—Leaves all pinnate ; 
leaflets egg-shaped, serrate, somewhat cut, the terminal one 3-lobed; fruit 
smooth. Plant perennial. This species is much larger than the last, and 
has an angled stem marked with lines. It occurs in bushy wastes on chalky 
and limestone soils, but is not so frequent as the Common Burnet Saxifrage. 
Its white flowers appear in July and August. 

The well-known anise used in medicine is often procured from a species 
of the Pimpinella, which is cultivated in Malta and Spain, whence the seeds 
are imported into this country. These are also used in flavouring liqueurs, 
in some sorts of digestive bread, and various articles of confectionery ; and 
the leaves are employed in garnishing dishes, and are put into soups and 
sauces. 


14. WaTER Parsnip (Siwn), 


1. Broad-leaved Water Parsnip (8. latifélivm).—Stem erect; leaflets 
unequally lobed, and serrated ; umbels stalked, at the summit of the stem ; 
bracts of involucres narrow, and pointed. Plant perennial. This is a large, 
stout, conspicuous plant, standing up three, four, or even five feet in height 


ld ¢ 
i—2 


52 UMBELLIFERA& 


by the water’s edge, its flat umbels of white flowers appearing in July and 
August. The stems are furrowed, and the pinnate leaves are large, and 
composed of from five to nine distant leaflets. 

2. Narrow-leaved Water Parsnip (S. angustifélium). — Leaves 
pinnate ; leaflets unequally cut, egg-shaped, the upper ones narrower ; umbels 
opposite the leaves, stalked. Plant perennial. This species, though rare in 
Scotland, is not unfrequent in England. It is a much smaller plant than the 
last, and very much resembles the procumbent marshwort. It may be dis- 
tinguished from it by its stalked umbels, and by its having general and partial 
bracts. Its white umbels appear in July and August. 

Though our Water Parsnip is not fitted for food, yet a species of this 
genus furnished the Skirret of our ancestors. This is the Stwm sisarwm, and 
it is still occasionally cultivated for its tubers, which are very wholesome 
when eaten boiled with butter. Our old gardeners and herbalists make 
much mention of the Skirret; and many old poets, as Michael Drayton, 
have praised this root. It once found a place in all the best kitchen gardens, 
but it is now rarely found in England except in cottage gardens ; though 
the Scottish peasant still cultivates it under the name of Crummack. This 
Skirret is so full of saccharine matter, that a chemist extracted from half a 
pound of the roots one ounce and a half of pure sugar. 

The Skirret is indigenous to China, but was introduced into this country 
about the middle of the sixteenth century. Worlidge, commenting on it in 
his work on “Husbandry,” written at the latter end of the seventeenth 
century, calls it “the sweetest, whitest, and most wholesome of roots ;” and 
it is believed to be the plant which the Emperor Tiberius valued so highly 
as to send for it to the banks of the Rhine. It is too sweet to be generally 
pleasing to modern palates. 


15, HARE’S-EAR (Dupleirum). 


1. Narrow-leaved Hare’s-ear (B. aristdtum). —Stem branched ; 
leaves linear-lanceolate, sharply pointed, and 3-nerved ; leaves of the partial 
involucres longer than the umbels, lanceolate, and suddenly tapering to a 
point, somewhat awned ; flower-stalks short, equal. Plant annual. This is 
a sinall species, from three to six inches in height, with stiff leaves of a pale 
yellow green, and marked with lines. They have a pungent flavour. The 
leaves of all this genus are remarkable among umbelliferous plants as being 
undivided, the foliage of nearly all the other genera being cut into various 
divisions and subdivisions. The greenish-yellow flowers appear in July. 
The plant is rare, and is found on rocks 208M Torquay, also in Sussex and 
the Channel Islands. 

2. Common Hare’s-ear, or Thorow-wax (B. rotundifélium).—Stem 
branched above ; general involucre wanting, partial ones large, bristle-pointed, 
thrice as long as the flowers; leaves perfoliate, roundish, oval ; root annual. 
This is a singular plant, readily distinguished by its perfoliate leaves of a 
glaucous green hue, and in July by its large greenish-yellow partial involucres, 
which are far more conspicuous than the small greenish-yellow flowers which 
are to be seen on the plant at that season. The root is said to be astringent, 
and the plant was formerly much used as a vulnerary. The English name 


al: WATER-PARSNIP 
Sium latifolinm . 


4. COMMON H.E 
; B. rotandifolinm 
&. SLENDER H. & 
B. tenmissimum . 
S. FALCATE-LEAVED H. F&F 
B.faleatum . 


2 NARROW-LEAVED W.P 
S. angustifolium 
NARROW-LEAVED HARES EAR 


Bipletrum aristatumn . 


Pl, 91. 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 53 


of Thorow-wax is from the circumstance of a stalk going through, or thorow 
the leaf, wax being an old word for grow. The French call it Le Bupleore, 
and the Germans Das Hufenohrchen ; it is the Buplewro of the Italians, and 
the Haazenoor of the Dutch. Though locally plentiful in cornfields on chalky 
soils, it is confined to the eastern and southern parts of England, and must 
be regarded as a rare plant, in spite of its name. It is not found farther 
north than Yorkshire, nor beyond Somerset in a westerly direction. 

Several species of Hare’s-ear have been brought from Switzerland, Southern 
Europe, and Africa, into our gardens, but they are rather singular than 
ornamental. Thunberg, when in Japan, found a very curious plant of this 
genus, the Bupleirum gigantéwm. He says that the inhabitants of Roode 
Zand all assured him, with one voice, that there was a bush to be found on 
the mountain on which grew wonderful products, such as caps, gloves, 
worsted stockings, ete., of a substance resembling a fine plush. “I impor- 
tuned,” says this traveller, “almost everybody in the neighbourhood to 
procure me, if possible, some of the marvellous products, and I resolved not 
to leave the place till I should have unriddled the mystery. In the course 
of a few days, I had several of the leaves brought me down from the 
mountains, which were covered with a thick down, and very much resembled 
white velvet. The girls, who were used to the management of these leaves, 
began immediately, with singular dexterity and nicety, to strip off this 
downy coat, whole and entire as it was, without rending it. After it had 
been taken off in this manner, it was turned inside cutwards, when the green 
veins of the leaf appeared on one side. Accordingly as the leaf was more 
round or oval, divers of the above-mentioned articles were formed out of it, 
the shape being now and then assisted a little by the scissors. The stalks 
of the leaves furnished stockings and ladies’ fingered gloves, the smaller 
leaves caps; so that the matter was not quite so wonderful as it was wonder- 
fully related.” Our traveller, resolving to ascertain the exact plant which 
produced this downy substance, climbed to the highest summits of the 
mountains, and there found this singular Bupleurum. 

3. Slender Hare’s-ear (B. tenutssimum).— Stem branched ; leaves 
linear, very sharply pointed ; umbels very minute, and few-flowered ; partial. 
umbels usually overtopped by their involucres ; carpels granulated between 
the ridges. Plant annual. This is a tall slender species, differing from all 
the others by the little grain-like substances between the ribs of its carpels. 
It has a wiry solid stem, about a foot high, and produces its umbels of tiny 
yellowish-green flowers in August and September. It grows on salt marshes, 
on the south and east coasts of England, extending as far north as Durham, 
and is of very local occurrence. 

4, Falcate-leaved Hare’s-ear (B. falcdétwm).—Stem hollow, branched 
above only ; lower leaves oblong, or egg-shaped, on long stalks ; upper sessile, 
narrowly lanceolate, partially clasping the stem; partial involucre of five 
lanceolate, pointed leaves, as long as the flowers. Plant perennial. This 
species, which produces its minute greenish flowers in July, has a slender 
stem from one to four feet in height, often unbranched. Its claims to be 
reckoned as a British plant are not very strong, and it occurs only about 
fields in Surrey and Essex. 


54 UMBELLIFER Ai 


* * * Umbels compound ; fruit not prickly, nor beaked, nor flattened, 
16. WATER Dropwort (“ndnthe). 


‘1. Common Water Dropwort ((W. /istuldsa).—Stem sending out 
runners from its base ; stem-leaves pinnate, shorter than their tubular stalks ; 
umbels of very few rays ; universal involucre wanting ; fruit tipped with the 
long rigid styles. Plant perennial. This Dropwort, though rare in Scotland, 
is a very common English plant. It grows in ditches and rivulets to the 
height of two or three feet, and is easily distinguished from its allies by 
its remarkably tubular habit. The lower leaves are entirely beneath the 
water, and the leaflets of these are flat, but all the rest of the plant is com- 
posed of tubes. The flowers, which are greenish-white, expand from July 
to September, and the angled corky fruits form dense globular heads, each 
as large as a small marble. Like several other species, this is a poisonous 
plant. It is, with many similar plants, called by country people Wild Parsley. 
The French term the Dropwort /’Gnanthé, the Germans Die Rebendolide ; it 
is the Druivebloem of the Dutch, and the Enante of the Italians. The plant 
was said, by Pliny, to smell like the vine in flower. 

2. Callous-fruited Water Dropwort (H. pimpinelldides).—Root of 
long fibres, studded with round or oval knobs ; root-leaves twice pinnate, with 
leaflets acutely cut, or 3-cleft ; stem-leaves simply pinnate, shorter than their 
stalks ; fruit cylindrical, with an enlarged corky base. Plant perennial. 
This species has a compact umbel of white flowers, the partial umbels being 
all crowded together. It is from half a foot to three feet in height, and its 
general involucre has from-one to six leaves, but is sometimes wanting ; the 
partial involucres consist of many leaves. Though in its wild state the root 
is poisonous, yet when the plant is cultivated it loses its noxious proper- 
ties, and is eaten as food. The knobs then contain a mild farinaceous 
substance, and have somewhat the flavour of filberts. The plant is grown 
about Angers, and the roots sold in the neighbouring markets. This 
species blossoms from June to August, and is tolerably abundant on the 
pastures of many counties, as in Gloucester, Worcester, Dorset, and Devon, 
growing occasionally in salt marshes. It is more slender in form than most 
of the species, and must be considered as a rare plant. 

3. Parsley Water Dropwort (. lachenilii).—Stem erect; root- 
leaves twice pinnate ; leaflets oblong, entire, or wedge-shaped, and bluntly 
2—3-lobed ; lower stem-leaves 2—3-pinnate, upper simply pinnate ; leaflets 
linear, acute ; general involucre of many leaves, sometimes wanting ; root 
perennial, and composed of thick fibres, or spindle-shaped kncbs. This 
plant is not unfrequent on salt marshes, and occurs, though more rarely, in 
fresh water. The stem is from one to three feet high, and slightly branched ; 
and its flower, which consists of many distinct spherical partial umbels, may 
be seen from July to September. The root-leaves are very evanescent, but 
the root and the fruit distinguish the plant. The latter is top-shaped, 
narrowing gradually at the base, and crowned with the calyx, which bends 
inwards. It is less common in Scotland than in England. 

4. Sulphur-wort Water Dropwort (MH. silaifélia).—Root of oblong 
knobs ; radical-leaves twice pinnate; stem-leaves pinnate, all the leaflets 


ses 

VATS Ps 
TOI nel? 
SUES 


i] 
nF 


1 COMMON WATER -DROPWORT. geeks SER avis OMCs SWE. a) 


(Enanthe fistulosa . cracata 
2 PARSLEY .W.D. a FINE -LEAVED W. D 

(EB. lachenalia . @. phellandrinm. 
3. SULPHUR WORT W. D. 6 RIVER. W. D 

@. sulaifolia . (2. fiuviatibs , 


Pl. 92. 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 55 


linear and acute; fruit nearly cylindrical, with a corky base. Plant 
perennial. This is a species of restricted range, growing in fresh-water 
marshes and meadows from Notts, Worcester, and Norfolk southwards. Its 
branches are tubular, and its branched stem two or three feet high. It 
flowers in June, and its partial involucres are of many leaves, shorter than 
the flowers. * It has no general involucre. This is the . pewedanifolia of 
some authors. 

5. Hemlock Water Dropwort ((. crocdta).— Root perennial, the 
fibres with large spindle-shaped tubers ; root-leaves 2—3-pinnate ; stem- 
leaves pinnatifid ; leaflets stalked, variously cut, those of the upper leaves 
narrower than the more rounded ones of the lower leaves; fruit cylindrical, 
oblong, without a callous base, and longer than its stalk. This plant is 
pretty generally known by those who are accustomed to observe wild flowers. 
It is too tall and large to escape notice, being sometimes five feet, and very 
commonly three feet in height, and much branched. It has large broad 
glossy leaflets, various in number and shape, and its large umbels of white 
flowers appear in July. The juice of its stems, when exposed to the air, 
often turns yellow, and like most yellow juices in plants indicates noxious 
properties. 

Many fatal disasters have been caused by this plant; cows have been 
poisoned by eating the roots, and persons unacquainted with plants have 
eaten it under the impression that it was wild celery, and have died in con- 
sequence. Some years since, a number of convicts, working on an embank- 
ment near Woolwich, dug up these roots, and as there is nothing in their 
odour which would give the idea that they were deleterious, they impru- 
dently ate them with their dinner. Seventeen men partook of the repast, 
all of whom were rendered more or less ill, while to four it proved fatal. 
John Ray asserted, in one of his works, the poisonous nature of this Drop- 
wort, but his assertion was at that time doubted, though its accuracy was 
confirmed by some accounts sent him by his friend, ‘a learned physician,” 
Dr. Francis Vaughan. A case came under the notice of this gentleman, in 
which seven young men, while fishing in a river, saw and ate the root of 
the Dropwort; four or five hours after eating it, one of them fell back- 
wards, foaming at the mouth, and he died next morning. Four more * 
were seized soon after, and died on the following morning, without having 
spoken a word from the time in which the poison had attained its full 
power in the system; only one escaped uninjured. Dr. Vaughan also 
mentions that a Dutchman in his neighbourhood was poisoned by boiling 
and eating the tops of this plant shred into his pottage; he was soon 
after found dead in his boat. A little Irish boy had forewarned him of the 
danger of eating it, but the Dutchman asserted that it was good salad in 
his country; so that, as Dr. Vaughan observes, he doubtless took it for 
celery, which its fone much saeco 

Dr. Pickells read to the British Association a paper on the Enanthe 
crocata, in which he observed, that it was one of the most virulent poisons 
of the British Flora, adding that it grows in great abundance, particularly 
in Cork. He had collected records of nearly thirty cases of death caused 
by eating the root, the quantity taken in one instance being exceedingly 


56 UMBELLIFERA 


small. The symptoms which preceded death were very appalling, and he 
thought that this, and not the hemlock, might possibly be the plant used 
to destroy Socrates, while, from the symptoms of derangement which ac- 
companied its effects, he considered it probable that it was “the insane root 
which takes the reason prisoner,” referred to by Shakspere. Dr. Pickells 
stated the Dropwort to be as injurious to black cattle and horses as to man, 
No direct and certain antidote was known; but melted butter, which is 
popularly deemed efficacious against its effects, had been given in some of the 
cases which had recovered. Notwithstanding the poisonous properties of the 
plant, it has been used with success by medical practitioners. Gerarde says : 
‘Beware and take good heed of this and such like simples, for there is no 
physition that will give it, because there be many excellent good simples 
which God has bestowed upon us for the preventing and curing of diseases.” 
Dr. Johnson, in his “Flora of Berwick,” commenting on this, says, ‘‘ Despite 
the advice of the pious Gerarde, modern physicians have given an infusion 
of the leaves, or the juice of the roots, in leprosy, with success.” Goats 
can eat this virulently poisonous plant with impunity, but it destroys rats 
and mice, and the roots are used by country people for that purpose. 
The bruised rootis also sometimes applied as a poultice to painful joints. 

6. Fine-leaved Water Dropwort (@. phelléndrium).—Root fibrous, 
and biennial ; stem erect; leaves thrice pinnate ; leaflets egg-shaped, pin- 
natifid, cut, spreading ; those of the submersed ones wedge-shaped, pellucid, 
cut ; umbels lateral, opposite to the leaves ; fruit egg-shaped. Not only do. 
the fibrous roots of this plant distinguish it from the preceding, but the 
leaves, cut into slender pointed segments, are very different from the broad 
leaves of the Hemlock Dropwort. The upper part of the foliage is of a pale 
yellowish-green, but the submersed ieaves are of a deep, dark, rich green 
colour. The stem is two or three feet high, very thick at the lower part, 
and sending out runners; and the flowers are produced from July to 
September. The plant is not uncommon in ditches and ponds in England, 
but is rare in Scotland. This species is also poisonous. 

7, River Water Dropwort (4. fluvidtilis).—Stem floating; leaves 
twice pinnate ; leaflets simple, and pinnatifid; leaflets of the submersed 
leaves pellucid, wedge-shaped, deeply cut at the end; umbels opposite to the 
leaves. Plant perennial. This plant, which is commonly found in streams 
in the middle and south-east of England, is considered by some botanists a 
sub-species of the preceding. It flowers from July to September. 


17. Foou’s PARSLEY (dithisa). 


Common Fool’s Parsley (4. cyniépium).—Leaves twice pinnate ; 
leaflets wedge-shaped, pinnatifid, running down the stalk; partial involucre 
of one leaf longer than the umbel ; general involucre none. Annual. This 
plant, which is also called Lesser Hemlock, is sometimes mistaken for parsley ; 
and as it grows everywhere on cultivated lands, it is sometimes eaten by 
children, and has proved fatal to them. Some years ago two ladies in 
Somersetshire, who ate of it in salad, suffered very seriously, though both 
ultimately recovered. Its deleterious principles are said to depend on the 
presence in its juices of a peculiar alkaline principle termed cynapia, The 


ee 


Y 
Ethusa cynaprom 


PARSLE 


1. FOOLS 


B.: 


ilaus pratensis 


—~™ 


G 


R- SAXTFRA! 


MEADOW PEPPE 


3D. 


FENNEL. 


2 


5 


. MEU OR BALD 


gare 


ADOW-SAXTFRAGE. 


Seseli libanotis . 


Feniculum vol 
SCOTTISH TLOVAGE . 


ME 


NEY 


Meum sthamanticum 
SAMPHTRE 


G 


MOUNTAIN 


a. 


SEA 


7 


=n 


Taamin. maritima 


Git 


Ligusticum seoticum 


Pl, 98. 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 57 


plant has an unpleasant odour, and its much darker green colour, and its 
more finely-divided leaves, distinguish it at all times from true parsley ; and 
during July and August, when its umbels of white flowers are to be seen, it 
is well characterized by the involucres of the partial umbels, consisting of 
three long-‘leaves, which hang drooping all on one side. 


18. FENNEL (Feniculum). 


Common Fennel (f. vulgdre).—Leaves twice ternate; leaflets pin- 
natifid ; segments thread-shaped, or awl-shaped. Plant perennial. Most 
persons accustomed to roam by the sea-side, especially if they often wander 
among cliffs, know the dark yet bright green Fennel, which so often over- 
shadows the thrift and sea lavender, or the sandworts of the sandy soil at 
the base of the cliffs. The plant grows also sometimes in places a little way 
inland, near houses and villages, and is found in profusion in many salt 
marshes, both of the sea and river. Plentiful as it is, and wholly wild as it 
would seem to be, many botanists consider that it is not truly indigenous ; 
Sir Joseph Hooker is of opinion that it may be native so far as the district 
between North Wales and Norfolk to Cornwall and Kent is concerned, “ but 
not north of it, nor in Ireland.” When we remember how much the plant 
was prized in former days, and how often still we see the Fennel growing in 
the cottage or kitchen garden, it is likely that it is rather naturalized than 
native. Asan old herbalist said, ‘Every garden affordeth this so plentifully, 
that it needs no description :” he also rejoices that ‘one good old fashion is 
not yet left off, viz., to boil Fennel with fish,” a custom still preserved in the 
eastern part of England, where it is served up with boiled mackerel. Some 
very slight differences exist between the wild and garden plant ; the latter 
is called Feniculum dulce, but it is scarcely distinct, and probably is but a 
variety. 

Parkinson, who wrote his celebrated “Garden of Flowers” in 1629, 
added to it a treatise on ‘‘divers physicall herbes, fit to be planted in gardens 
to serve for the especial use of a familie.” He says of the Fennel: “ It 
is sowne of seede, and abideth many yeeres, yielding seede; the roots 
also are used in broths, and the leaves more seldome, yet they serve to 
trimme up many fish meates.” He adds elsewhere, that “Fennel is useful to 
strowe upon fish, as also to boyle and put among fish of divers sortes.” He 
tells us, too, that “ Cowcumbers and other fruits are pickled” with it; and 
that the “seedes are much used to be put in Pippin pies, and divers other 
such baked fruits, as also unto bread, to give it a better relish.” Of its 
general use as a fish-sauce we have plenty of record in old books. Thus, in 
“Piers Ploughman,” one speaks of “a ferthing’s worth of fynkel-sede for 
fastynge daies.” LHyen yet some remains of its old use are seen in many 
parts of Kent, where, when mackerel is purchased, the fishmonger sends 
home with it a branch of Fennel, to be used as sauce. To few modern 
palates, however, is the Fennel agreeable. A sweet flavour in food seems 
to have been liked by our ancestors, and this plant has a strong and to us 
unpleasant sweetness. 

Iennel, however, was evidently much liked, and its odour was considered 

II1.—8 


58 UMBELLIFER 


an addition to that of the nosegay. ‘There’s Fennel for you, and columbines,” 
said Ophelia; and Milton also says :— 


‘* A savoury odour blown more pleased my sense 
Than smell of sweetest Fennel.” 


In those days when herbs were commonly strewed over the pathway of 
the newly-married persons, the Fennel seems to have been one that was 
usually chosen. Thus we have Michael Drayton saying :— 


‘* Whilst some still busied are in decking of the bride, 
Some others were again as seriously employ’d 
In strewing of those herbs at bridals used that be, 
Which everywhere they throw, with bounteous hands and free : 
The healthful balm and mint from their full laps do fly, 
The scentful camomile, the verdrous costmary. 
The hot muscado oil, with milder maudlin cast, 
Strong tansy, Fendel cool, they prodigally waste ; 
Clear hyssop, and therewith the comfortable thyme, 
Germander with the rest, each thing then in her prime, 
As well of wholesome herbe as every pleasant flower, 
Which Nature has produced to fit that happy hour ; 
Amongst these strewing kinds some others wild that grow, 
As burnet, all abroad, and meadow-wort they throw.” 


The Fennel was esteemed of great medicinal use, and its seeds are 
carminative. ‘They were much recommended by old writers, when boiled 
in wine, to relieve those who had eaten poisonous mushrooms, or other 
herbs; or had been bitten by those terrific creatures, the scorpions and 
serpents, which our fathers seemed to think lurked in every hedge. Pliny 
has recorded the uses of Fennel by the ancients. ‘As for Fennel,” he says, 
in the words of his translator, Dr. Holland, “the serpents have won it much 
credit, and brought it into name in this regard, that by tasting thereof they 
cast their old skin, and by the juyce that it yieldeth doe clear their eyes: 
whereby we also are come to know that this hearbe hath a singular propertie 
to mundifie our sight and take away the filme or web that overruleth and 
dimmeth our eyes.” Later herbalists and physicians recommended the 
Fennel root, boiled in milk, as tonic and carminative ; and gout and cramp, 
and yellow jaundice, were directed to be treated by “physic drinks,” made 
in various ways, of roots, leaves, and seeds; while a broth, made of Fennel, 
was advised for people who were growing too fat, and desired to be made 
lean. The notion that the use of it gave strength to the constitution is very 
old. The ancients regarded Fennel as highly restorative, but it is very 
doubtful whether they intended by that our wild Fennel, or whether the 
dill or even wild celery was indicated. 

The name of Fennel, as well as its older name of Finckle, and also the 
Anglo-Saxon fenol or fenouil, and the old German fenekel, were all derived 
from the Latin feniculum. The plant is usually three or four feet in height, 
but in places where it grows luxuriantly, as on the hills near the sea at 
Sandgate, in Kent, it is often six feet high, and its beautiful rich dark-green 
foliage is very airy and graceful. Its umbels of yellow flowers appear in 
July and August. Besides the variety termed dulce, there is a cultivated or 
dwarf variety called Finochio, which is eaten as a salad with oil, vinegar, and 
pepper. This variety has sometimes very thick stalks, which are blanched 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 59 


by placing earth around them, and they then form a very pleasant vegetable. 
This kind is much cultivated in Italy. 

Mr. F. A. Paley informs the author that he considers that the plant 
which the Greeks and Romans used as crowns was certainly celery (dpium), 
the translation Fennel being quite arbitrary. Longfellow, in his little poem 
called “The Goblet of Life,” apparently alludes to our Fennel as the plant 
in question :— 

** Above the lowly plants it towers, 
The Fennel with its yellow flowers ; 
And in an earlier age than ours 


Was gifted with the wondrous powers 
Lost vision to restore. 


“Tt gave new strength and fearless mood, 
And gladiators fierce and rude 
Mingled it in their daily food ; 
And he who battled and subdued, 
The wreath of Fennel bore.” 


19. MEADOW SAXIFRAGE (Séscli). 


Mountain Meadow Saxifrage (8. libandtis).—Stem furrowed ; leaves 
doubly pinnate, cut ; segments lanceolate, very acute, the lowermost leaflets 
crossing; general involucre of many leaves; fruit hairy ; root spindle- 
shaped, and perennial. This is a very rare plant of chalky pastures, with a 
stem of from one to three feet in height. It has been found on the Gogma- 
gog Hills in Cambridgeshire, and on the chalk hills of Herts and Sussex. It 
is by some writers termed Libandtis montdéna. It bears terminal umbels of 
small white flowers in July and August. 


20. LovacE (Ligisticum). 


Scottish Lovage (L. scéticuwm).—Leaves twice ternate ; leaflets egg- 
shaped, somewhat rhomboidal, toothed, and serrated ; involucre of 5—7 
linear lanceolate leaves ; calyx five-toothed. Plant perennial, The Lovage 
is frequent, though local, on the rocky sea-coasts of Scotland and Northumber- 
land. Its leaves grow mostly from the root, and are dull green, opaque, 
and somewhat succulent, with very large lobed and cut leaflets. The umbels 
of white flowers appear in July. When bruised the plant emits a strong 
odour of parsley. The herb is eaten freshly gathered, or prepared as a salad, 
and the natives of the Shetland Islands, who eat it thus, as well as boiled, 
call it Siimas. It has an aromatic flavour, but it is somewhat nauseous to 
palates unused to it, though a Highland gentleman assured the writer, that 
having from childhood been accustomed to eat it, he regarded it as a great 
delicacy. Dr. Walker, who remarks that Ray, in his “Synopsis,” mentions 
Highlanders who used to eat it before anything in the morning to preserve 
them from infection through the day, adds, “and indeed its strong and 
grateful aromatic taste would plead that in this practice they judged not 
amiss.” ‘The spindle-shaped root is carminative, and the people on the shores 
where it is plentiful have from time immemorial prized it for its medicinal 
qualities. Its flavour is very hot and disagreeable, but as in former days it 
was reputed to be a cure for ague, it was much planted in English gardens, 
where, as an old writer says, “it groweth huge and great.” In its wild state 

8—2 


60 UMBELLIFERA 


the stem is about a foot or a foot and a half high, nearly without branches, 
marked with lines, and often tinged with red. The Highlanders, who call 
it also Sea Parsley, sometimes chew it as tobacco. The French term it 
Langélique w feuilles @ache. It is the Liebstickel of the Germans, the Lavas 
Kruid of the Dutch, and the Ligustico of the Italians and Spaniards. The 
Danes call it Loestilh. 


21. PEPPER SAXIFRAGE (Sildus). 


Meadow Pepper Saxifrage (S. praténsis).—Leaves thrice pinnate ; 
leaflets lanceolate, entire, or twice cleft, opposite; general involucre of one 
or two leaves. Root perennial. This is a conspicuous plant, growing to 
one or two feet in height, its leaves being chiefly at the root, and its dull 
pale yellow flowers placed at the top of its stem. It is not very frequent, 
but is found on some damp pastures both in England and Scotland, flower- 
ing from May to September. It has a very disagreeable odour, and is 
apparently not liked by cattle. Sir J. E. Smith remarks: “The whole plant, 
being fetid when bruised, is supposed, in some parts of Norfolk, to give a 
bad flavour to milk and butter; but cattle do not eat it, except perhaps 
accidentally, or in small quantities, though sufficient, it may be, to have the 
effect in question.” Its general appearance is very similar to that of the 
Lovage. 

22. SPIGNEL (Méum). 

Meu, or Bald-money (J. athamdnticum).—Leaves long, twice pinnate ; 
leaflets divided into many hair-like segments; general involucre of two or 
three leaves; partial of many leaves. Plant perennial. The Spignel is 
pleasantly and powerfully aromatic, the root being especially so. This is 
shaped like a carrot, and prized for its carminative virtues. It has a sweetish 
flavour, reminding one of the Melilot ; and it is said to communicate this to 
milk and butter, if, during spring, the cows feed upon it. Sir W. Hooker 
says that the common name of Bald, or Bald-money is a corruption of Balder, 
the Apollo of the North, to whom the plant was dedicated. The French 
eall it L’Ethuse a feuilles capillaires ; the Germans term it Biéirwurz ; and it is 
the Meu both of the Spaniards and Italians. Its Dutch name of Beerwortel 
would indicate that it is sometimes used to flavour malt liquor, which is not 
improbable. The plant is frequent in the Highlands on dry pastures, and 
the root is eaten there as an aromatic. It is not rare on mountainous lands 
in the north of England. It is easily known by its dark thread-like leaves, 
and its strong odour. It bears yellowish-green flowers in June and July. 


23. SAMPHIRE (Crithmum). 


Sea Samphire (C. maritimum).—Leaves fleshy, 2—3 pinnate ; leaflets 
lanceolate, few, narrowed at both ends. Plant perennial. From May to 
August the greenish-white flowers of this Samphire may be found in thick 
clusters, but they are not very showy. Clumps of the plant, however, by 
their foliage, enliven the sea-cliffs on many parts of our coast. On the chalky 
heights of Dover the plant is abundant, now and then growing within the 
reach of him who wanders at their base, but more generally springing from 
rocky crevices at so great a height that he cannot clearly distinguish the 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 61 


form of leaf or blossom. Thousands of these are seen only by the sea-bird 
which wings its way above them, or by the adventurous gatherers of samphire. 
It is not often we could say now of these cliffs :— 


**Half-way down 

Hangs one that gathers samphire ; dreadful trade ! 

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.” 
And it is well that samphire-gathering, both from the Shakspere cliff and 
the cliffs at the eastern part of the old town of Dover, is pretty well discor.- 
tinued. The plant was formerly gathered by suspending a rope from the 
summit of the cliff, on which a man descended. In the year 1823 a man 
was thus occupied, when the rope suddenly gave way, and he was dashed to 
the earth and died immediately. This man had pursued his dangerous occu- 
pation during the summers of forty years, and would often talk to visitors 
of Shakspere and King Lear, jocosely saying that he himself was king in 
that little domain, for none ventured to gather his samphire. Now and then 
some adventurous young sailor clambers up the lofty steeps to gather some 
tufts half-way up, just when those cliffs are looking most beautiful in their 
summer flowers, and when, in the words of Agnes Strickland :— 


“The burnet there securely blows, ‘« And there the emerald Samphire oft 
And seems to turn away Appears a tempting sight, 
When o’er her hardy bosom blows And lures the venturous boy aloft 
The drifting spray. To scale the height : 
‘*Unbidden there the borage springs, ‘“The bugloss buds of crimson hue 
Grey lichens creep beneath, To azure flowers expand, 
And graceful persicaria flings Like changeful banner, bright to view, 
Her rosy wreath : By wild winds fanu’d.” 


Not one of our native plants can at all be compared in flavour with 
this when pickled with vinegar and spices. It is very pleasantly aromatic, 
both in odour and taste, and very succulent. It is not, however, prized as it 
was some years since, for it was formerly not only pickled, but eaten raw as 
a salad, or boiled for the table. Evelyn, in his treatise on “Sallet Herbs,” 
praises it very highly. It has been cultivated on inland spots with success, 
in sheltered situations where the soil has been sprinkled with powdered 
barilla. The name of Samphire appears to be a corruption of its old French 
name Herbe de St. Pierre ; the French now call it Crete marine. The plant is 
the Meerfenchel of the Germans, and the Finichio marina of the Italians. Its 
stems are usually about half a foot high, and much branched. Both stems 
and foliage are of a pale green tint. It is a social plant, often forming large 
masses a yard in diameter on the surface of the cliffs, often but a little above 
tide-mark. ‘The general notion that it only grows high up the cliffs is a mis- 
taken one. It is a rare plant on the Scottish coasts. 


** * * Fruit not prickly nor beaked ; much flattened. 
24. ANGELICA (Angélica). 

1. Garden Angelica (4. archangélica).—Leaflets narrowly egg-shaped, 
all sessile, some running so closely together as to form a wing on the stem, 
terminal one 3-cleft. Plant biennial. This plant, which is the Angélica 
officinalis of many writers, is not truly wild, though usually enumerated in 
our British Flora, because it has long been naturalized here in consequence 


62 UMBELLIFERA& 


of its frequent culture in gardens in earlier times. It cannot be overlooked, 
for it is a tall and handsome plant, about three or four feet high, with a 
remarkably smooth stem. The leaves are of bright glossy green, and it 
bears umbels of white flowers in July. 

Our ancestors prized this Angelica very highly, and its leaf-stalks were 
very commonly blanched and eaten with bread and butter as celery, or they 
were dried and preserved with sugar to form the sweetmeat called candied 
angelica. In Iceland, Siberia, Norway, and Lapland, this plant is still 
greatly valued as an article of food, and it is very abundant in the north of 
Kurope. The Laplanders, who eat it in various ways, and season dishes 
with it, give it so many names as quite to perplex the stranger; and in 
some countries it 1s frequently called by a name signifying the Holy Ghost. 
Its names throughout Europe show the high opinion entertained of this 
aromatic plant, and the belief in its “ Angelic” virtues. It is the Angélique of 
the French ; the Angelica, or Engelwurz, of the Germans ; the Hngelwortel of the 
Dutch ; and the Angelica of the Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, and Russians. 

It is not only as food but as medicine that the Angelica was and still is 
valued. It is doubtless carminative and stimulant. The Laplanders believe 
of this plant, as the Highlanders do of the lovage, that the use of it will 
lengthen life, and they therefore chew it as they would tobacco. They 
also mix it with their bread, both because they like its flavour, and consider 
it a preventive of disease. In our own country it was believed to have 
wonderful efficacy against pestilence and a variety of disorders. Parkinson 
says of it, ‘ Having showed you all the herbes that are most usually planted 
in kitchen gardens for ordinarie uses, let me now adde some others that are 
also noursed up by many in their gardens to preserve health, to cure such 
small diseases as are often within the compasse of the gentlewomen’s skill, 
who to helpe their own family and their poor neighbours that are farre re- 
mote from Physitions and Chirurgeons, take much pains both to doe goode 
unto them, and to plant those herbes that are conducing to their desires. 
Angelica, the garden kinde, is so goode an herbe that there is no part 
thereof but is of much use, and all cordiall and preservatives from infectious 
or contagious diseases, whether you will distill the water of the herbe, or 
preserve or candie the greene stalkes or rootes, or use the seedes in powder 
or distillations or decoctions with other things.” In France, even of late 
years, the root of Angelica has been prescribed by good authorities as a 
remedy in diseases of the chest and of sore throat ; it was also popularly 
believed to avert hydrophobia, as well as to remove the effects of intoxica- 
tion. A plant so universally esteemed of course became allied to some 
superstitious practices. Thus we find Coles, in his “ Art of Simpling,” re- 
marks, “that if one hang Miseltoe about his neck the witches can have no 
power of him. The roots of Angelica doe likewise availe much in the 
same case, if a man carry them about him, as Fuchsius saith.” 

2. Wild Archangel (/. syivéstris).—Stem furrowed ; leaves twice pin-’ 
nate; leaflets egg-shaped, often somewhat heart-shaped at the base, and 
serrated ; umbels large. Plant perennial. This is a large and noble plant, 
commonly attaining, in wet places, the height of three or four feet, and in 
some places rising to that of eight or ten feet. Its stem is of a purplish 


NCS 


i wD 
U 


NW\ SOY 


1 GARDEN ANGELICA ~ 4. MARSH H.F 
Angehea archanpelica P. palustre 


te 


WILD ANGELICA 5, BROAD-LEAVED #H.F. 
A. sylvestris P ostrnthrumn 
3 SEA- HOGS -FENNET. 6 COMMON WILD PARSNIP 


fencedanmm of Gicimale Pastinaca sativa 


Pi. 9h. 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 63 


colour, one or two inches in diameter, and covered with a whitish down, 
which may be easily rubbed off with the finger. Its flowers appear in July, 
and are white tinged with pink. It is aromatic, but less so than the garden 
species. It is frequent in moist bogs and marshy places. After the stem is 
withered a very elegant little fungus often grows on this as well as other 
umbelliferous plants of damp places. This is the yellow hairy sessile Peziza. 
It is of a yellowish cottony surface externally, but inside it is grey, and 
nearly smooth. In dry weather it closes up its tiny cup, and does not look 
like a Peziza. It is often very pretty in the month of April, on the dead 
stems of the plant, and on dry sticks in damp woods. 


25, HoG’s-FENNEL (Peucédanum). 


1. Sea Hog’s-fennel, or Sulphur-weed (P. officindle).—Stem round ; 
leaves five times 3-parted ; leaflets linear, acute ; general involucre 3-leaved, 
falling early ; leaflets very long and narrow. Root perennial. This is a very 
rare plant of the sea-shore, growing in the salt marshes of Kent and Essex, 
and conspicuous from July to September by its large umbels of yellow 
flowers, and its long narrow flaccid leaflets. It has a strong odour of brim- 
stone, which is still more powerful in the roots than in the foliage or flower, 
though the scent of the roots of some foreign species has far greater strength. 
Our Hog’s-Fennel does not appear to yield much resin, but in warm climates 
the resin of some kinds is abundant. The plant was in former days considered 
a good remedy for hypochondriasis. 

Professor Balfour, remarking on the salubrious qualities of many umbelli- 
ferous plants found on the sea-shore, mentions this as one possessing such 
qualities. He quotes Dr. Walker’s remark on this subject: “Though,” says 
that writer, “I would not propose it as a rule to be depended upon in so 
dangerous a case as poisons, yet I think it highly probable that all the 
maritime plants of this class are salutary and excellent. This I am certain 
of, that none of the umbelliferous plants known to be poisonous are stationed 
on the sea-shore, all the maritime plants of this class whose qualities are 
known are innocent; and it is further remarkable that this is not to be 
ascribed to their dry situation among the maritime rocks, or on the sandy 
shore, for the celery and sulphur-wort grow on the salt marshes, on as 
watery a soil as any of the umbelliferous aquatics which are poisonous. 
Here, I imagine, lies an essential difference between plants that inhabit salt 
water and fresh.” Professor Balfour remarks, that Dr. Walker’s conclusions 
may be too general, though there is certainly much truth in his statements, 
but further information is necessary before all umbelliferous plants of salt 
marshes can be regarded as wholesome. We should hardly like to partake 
of the wild celery gathered from the salt marsh, though it has certainly 
been eaten with impunity: and Sir Wm. Hooker and Dr. Arnott remark 
of the root of this Sulphur-wort, that it is reckoned stimulant, but is of 
dangerous internal use. It is quite certain, as Dr. Walker has observed, that 
certain plants lose some of their noxious properties when growing on salt 
marshes, nor is the remark true of the umbelliferous class only. The writer 
of these pages, when at Pegwell Bay, near Ramsgate, in the course of the 
summer, found a quantity of the Ranunculus sceleratus growing near a salt 


64 UMBELLIFER& 


pool. While pointing out to some friends this well-known acrid herb, she 
rubbed her hands with its juices, in order to show its irritating effects, 
having always produced this very readily in former experiments with the 
plant. In this instance, however, the juice proved harmless, not even the 
slightest redness was perceptible on the skin, nor could its application to the 
skin of any of the party cause any irritation, though several specimens of 
the ranunculus gathered from various parts of the salt marsh were applied 
repeatedly. 

The Hog’s-fennel was well known to the herbalists in Queen Elizabeth’s 
time. They described it as growing plentifully in the low salt marshes near 
Faversham, in Kent, and recommended both its external and internal use for 
cramp, palsy, headache, and leprosy. They called the plant also Brimstone- 
wort. It is in France termed Peucedane ; in Germany Haarstrang ; and the 
Italians and Spaniards call it Peucedano. 

2. Marsh Hog’s-fennel, or Milk Parsley (P. paliis're).—Leaves 
thrice pinnate ; leaflets pinnatifid, the segments narrow and pointed ; involu- 
cres of many leaves; stem furrowed. Plant perennial. This is a very rare 
plant, found only in a few salt marshes in Kent and Essex. It is milky, and 
every part abounds with a bitter juice of a most unpleasant odour, as thick 
as cream, which soon dries into a brown resin. Its properties in our climate 
are doubtful, and probably dangerous ; but the root is said to be used by the 
Russians for giving a flavour to various articles of cookery, in the same way 
that we should use ginger. This plant is about four or five feet in height, 
and bears white flowers in July and August. 

3. Broad-leaved Hog’s-fennel, or Master-wort (P. ostruthiwm).— 
Leaves twice ternate ; leaflets broadly egg-shaped, cut, and serrated ; general 
involucre none. Plant perennial. This plant was called Master-wort by the 
old writers on plants, because of its supposed sovereign power over manifold 
diseases, and could it effect relief in half the cases for which they prescribed 
it, it would indeed be a plant of power. Its properties, however, though thus 
greatly overrated, were not merely imaginary. Its bitter biting root is still 
prized by country people as a cure for the toothache, and probably not 
without reason, as, like many other pungent substances, it would afford at 
least temporary relief. Some good writers on medical botany consider it 
an excellent febrifuge, and Lango says that agues have been cured by its use 
when Peruvian bark was ineffectual. ‘The root of Master-wort,” says an 
old herbalist, ‘is hotter than pepper, and is available in cold griefs and diseases. 
Used as a decoction with wine it is good against all sorts of cold poison, and 
against all wounds, especially those that come of envenomed weapons.” 

This is not a truly wild plant, though often found in moist meadows in 
Scotland ; but it was formerly frequently planted in the garden, and was 
boiled for the table. Its stem is one or two feet high, and its white flowers 
expand in June. Its large sheaths are very conspicuous, and it has several 
narrow leaves in the involucres of the partial umbels. 


26. PARSNIP (Pastindca). 


Common Wild Parsnip (P. sativa).—Stem furrowed; leaves pin- 
nate, downy beneath ; leaflets egg-shaped, cut and serrated, terminal one 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 65 


3-lobed ; involucres none. Plant biennial. The Parsnip is very frequent on 
chalky or gravelly soils, and is abundant in many parts of the country, 
growing on field borders, hedge banks, meadows, and sea cliffs. Its leaves 
are of bright green, and in July, August, and September, it produces its 
convex umbels of yellow flowers, which are succeeded by oval fruits. It has, 
when bruised, a strongly aromatic scent; and its fruits, which seem full of 
oil, will, if tasted, leave a pungent flavour on the tongue ; the oil has been 
expressed and used with success, in cases of intermittent fever. If we draw 
from the soil its long spindle-shaped roots, we can have no doubt, from its 
odour, that our plant has some affinity with the well-known edible Parsnip ; 
and tough as it is in its wild state, that culinary vegetable is but the 
cultivated variety of our native root. In its improved condition the root 
is full of a pleasant farinaceous substance, too sweet in flavour to be uni- 
versally relished, though highly nutritious. An old custom prevails of 
eating this vegetable during Lent, and in the north of Scotland it forms the 
daily meal of many a group of peasant children, who eat it with much satis- 
faction when beaten up with milk, and whose sturdy frames and rosy cheeks 
fully attest the wholesomeness of the diet. Gerarde says that, in his day, 
good bread was made of the root; and when this is slowly roasted in turf 
ashes, it forms almost as pleasant a food as the roasted potato. The Parsnip 
seems to have been more eaten in England in former years than now, and it 
would still, doubtless, be much cultivated, but that the soil on which it 
grows is well fitted for the more productive potato, which is more generally 
liked as food. In the north of Ireland, an agreeable beverage is made from 
Parsnip roots, brewed with hops, and a very fine spirit has been obtained by 
distillation from this root. Parsnip wine too was some years ago made in 
country places, but the writer, who drank of this beverage in early days, is 
inclined to think that the wine owed much of the excellence of its flavour 
to the other ingredients which mingled with the root in its composition. 
This wine is still made in some other countries. Parsnips are sometimes 
converted into a marmalade. 

The variety known as Coquaine Parsnip is very large, its root sometimes 
running three or four feet into the soil, and attaining three or four inches in 
diameter, while its mass of foliage looks at a distance almost like a shrub, .. 
and proceeds from the whole crown of the root. This kind is extensively 
planted in the Channel Isles as fodder for cattle ; but the smaller-rooted Siam 
Parsnip is more tender, and better fitted than the others for human food. 
It has been suggested that the excellence of the Alderney cow, for the 
purposes of the dairy, may be in great measure owing to its feeding so much 
on Parsnips. 

A light, deep soil, free from stones, is requisite for the growth of this 
root, and when in October the leaves at its summit are turning dull yellow, 
and beginning to decay, then the roots are fit for use. It is not, however, 
absolutely necessary to withdraw them at that season from the soil, as they 
are not, like the carrot, injured by the frost, and may safely remain in the 
ground during winter. The French term the Parsnip Le Panis, the Germans 
Die Pastinake. It is the Pinsternakel of the Dutch, the Pusternak of the 
Russians, and the Pastinaca of the Spaniards and Italians. 

.—9 


66 UMBELLIFERA 


27. Cow-Parsnip (Herdcleum). 


Common Cow-Parsnip (H. sphondjlium).—Leaves pinnated and hairy; 
leaflets pinnatifid and cut, terminal one somewhat palmated ; fruit nearly 
round and smooth. Plant biennial. Everyone used to the country has 
seen this large rough-looking plant, standing upon a stem four or five feet 
in height, among the meadow grass, or growing amidst the bushes of the 
hedge-bank or copse. The large thick umbels of white or pinkish white 
flowers appear in July, and the swelling pale green sheaths, which envelop 
the leaf-stalk, are very conspicuous. It is, as one might infer from its 
name, a nutritive and valuable herb for cattle, and Mr. Cobbett stated that 
he had fed six or eight horses for weeks together on this plant. In Sussex 
it is gathered for rabbits, sheep, and swine, and it is commonly known in 
that county, as in Kent, by the name of Hog-weed. Horses eat it when 
on their pasture, but they are not so fond of it as cows are. An attempt 
has been made in this kingdom to manufacture sugar from the dried stalks 
of this plant, but it required forty pounds of the stalks to yield one quarter 
of a pound of sugar, hence the amount of labour required rendered the 
process too expensive. 

This plant is very abundant in some of the colder countries of Europe. 
The grass plains at the west of Kamtschatka are in September rendered of 
most singular appearance, by the astonishing height of two withering umbel- 
liferous plants, which give a peculiar character to these wide tracts. They 
are described as having strong stems, more than fifteen feet high ; and they 
grow in great numbers, and project far beyond the grasses and other 
herbaceous plants. Dr. Griesbach thinks that they must belong to Angelica, 
and to this genus Heracleum. The Kamtschatdales commonly call the latter 
plant Ratsch, sweet herb, and many are the uses to which they apply it; 
large bundles of the stout stems are collected, and after being peeled, are 
laid in the sun. During the process of drying they become covered with a 
sweet white powder, which is esteemed a delicacy. It would be well if these 
poor people confined themselves to this use of the plant, or to their practice 
of boiling and eating the young shoots, which taste like asparagus ; but they 
have unfortunately discovered that a fermented spirit may be made from its 
juices, and they are said to drink a quantity of this liquor, in order to pre- 
pare, by a violent excitement, for a dedication of themselves to their deities, 
Travellers relate that these rude people become, when under this influence, 
most violently irascible, and that the use of the liquor so affects the mind 
that they are seized with a violent desire for self-destruction. Dr. George 
Moore, referring to this and similar usages among those on whom the 
glorious light of Revelation has never dawned, remarks, ‘The Thracians 
used to intoxicate themselves, by casting the seeds of certain poisonous 
plants into a fire made for the purpose, around which they sat and inspired 
the narcotic fumes. There can be no doubt that the incantations of witch- 
craft and magic were generally attended with the practice of burning herbs 
of a similar kind, that by the aid of poisonous fumigations, the imaginations 
of those who were subjected to them might be more easily deluded ; for when 
the nervous system is under such influences, perception is confused, and the 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 67 


mind becomes delirious, and the soul beholds what it either hopes or fears. 
Hence we see that the transition from intoxication to that kind of inspiration 
known to belong to the mysteries of heathen priestcraft is most natural.” 

“Such artificial modes of assisting mental abstraction have,” adds Dr. 
Moore, “been at all periods resorted to. Thus Pliny informs us that the 
soothsayers were accustomed to chew roots, supposed to be of a certain 
species of henbane. The Hindoos employ the Indian hemp for the sama 
purpose; and in St. Domingo the supposed prophets chew a plant called 
Cohaba, that they may be better able to look into the unseen world and per- 
ceive the shadow of coming events. Sophocles calls the priestesses of Delphos 
laurel-eaters, because they were in the habit of chewing the leaves of that 
plant before they mounted the tripod. The natives of Kamtschatka are said 
to use the plant Herdcleum sphondylium, with a view to prepare themselves for 
dedication to their gods.” 

A kind of beer for ordinary purposes is also made of this plant, both in 
Siberia and the neighbouring countries, and it is said by Gmelin, in his ‘Flora 
Siberica ” to be better than that made of corn. 

The Cow Parsnip was formerly called JMadnep ; the French term it Berce, 
the Germans Heilkraut, and the Dutch Heilkruid. It is the Spondillo of the 
Italians, the Hspondillo of the Spaniards ; and in Russia it is termed Pufschh. 
The word Heracleum is derived from Hercules, who is said to have brought 
the plant into some medicinal use, as Achilles is said first to have apphed the 
Yarrow to the healing of wounds. A modern French author has conjectured 
that Hercules was not only a great hero, but also a superior botanist and 
doctor ; and though this might be difficult of proof, yet it cannot be denied. 
We know that in later days, towards the end of the seventeenth century, 
the pilgrims to the Holy Land were tended during sickness in the hospitals 
prepared for them at Jerusalem, and that knights and soldiers, in imitation 
of Hercules, Achilles, and other warriors, became physicians to the best of 
their power, and carefully nursed the sick. The old, tedious histories of 
knights of the middle ages show how the warriors strove to obtain the best 
balsamic mixtures, and the celebrated composition called Baume de com- 
mandeur was made by these knights. True it is that, like Achilles and 
Hercules, whom they copied, their botanic science was somewhat uncertain, 
but they won the faith of the patient in their skill, and thus beneficially 
acted on his body by means of his mind. Doubtless, too, their natural 
sagacity, aided by that earnest will, which marvellously quickens the human 
intellect, enabled them often to select appropriate plants for “physic drinks.” 
The soldier would, in the early ages of the world, be likely to practise the 
art of healing, and to study the nature of the vegetable remedies, for the 
sake of the companion who might have suffered from the sword of the com- 
mon enemy. 


28. Hartwort (Zordglium). 


1. Small Hartwort (7. officinile). — Outermost petals of the flower 
with two unequal lobes ; partial involucres lanceolate, about as long as the 
umbels ; fruit rough, and the thickened margin distinctly notched. Plant 
annual. This Hartwort, which has pinkish-white flowers, on a hairy stem, 

9—2 


68 UMBELLIFERAt 


about a foot high, was described by our early botanists as growing in the 
neighbourhood of London. Its flowers, which expand in June and July, are 
very beautiful. Most botanists doubt if it was ever truly wild in this 
country, and consider the record to be due to confusion with the next species. 

2. Great Hartwort (7. mdximum).—Outermost petals with two equal 
lobes ; involucres shorter than the umbels ; fruit scarcely notched, but having 
a thick rim at its margin, and rough with bristles. Root annual. This is a 
rare plant, found on waste grounds near London, Oxford, and one or two 
other places. Its flowers are small, and of a pinkish colour, appearing in 
June and July, and the stem is from two to four feet high. The French 
call the Hartwort Le Seseli de Crete. It is the Drehkraut of the Germans, 
and the Gemein Kriczlaad of the Dutch. A very singular genus of plants, 
named by Linneus Hasselquista, after his friend Dr. Frederick Hasselquist, is 
supposed to be but a monstrous form of the Hartwort. 


*** * * Fruit globose, without prickles ; carpels scarcely separating. 
29. CORIANDER (Coridéndrum). 


Common Coriander (C. sativwm).— Stem erect, leafy, round, and 
marked with lines ; lower leaves twice pinnate and cut; upper ones with 
segments more numerous, the segments of the upper leaves being hair-like 
and rigid. Plant annual. The Coriander has so long been found growing 
without culture in several places of this kingdom, that it is enumerated 
among wild plants, though it has doubtless escaped from cultivation. It 
occurs on waste places and fields, but chiefly near towns, and seems more 
frequent in the south and east of England, having been much grown there. 
Its stem is about a foot or a foot and a half high, and its white blossoms 
may be seen in June. The plant may be known by its very singular and 
pleasantly aromatic fruit, which, when fully grown, is a little ball, marked 
with a few ribs. The foliage has a strong and offensive odour, which has 
suggested the name. In the cottage garden there linger yet 


‘* Sweet chervil’s cottage-valued weed, 
And Coriander’s spicy seed.” 


These seeds are used to disguise the flavour of medicines, and form an in- 
gredient in curry powder, and when covered with a coating of sugar, consti- 
tute the well-known Coriander comfits. To render their flavour milder, the 
seeds were formerly steeped first in wine, and afterwards in vinegar. The 
flavour of the aromatic seeds is better liked in some other countries than in 
ours, and Feuillée says that in Peru they are used to so great an extent 
in the cookery, that an insupportable odour arises from some of the dishes 
brought there to table. Coriander is used as a spice by the Arabs, and is 
much relished in Egypt and India. It was among the ancients both a condi- 
ment and medicine ; and from a passage in the Book of Numbers, where the 
manna is said to be like Coriander seed, it would appear to have been in 
common use among the Hebrews. It is frequently mentioned also by the 
Talmudical writers. 

The French term the plant Coriandre; the Germans call it Koriander ; 
the Dutch and Russians Coriandro ; and the Spaniards Cilantro. 


1 


COW- PARSN¥? 

Heracleum sphondylium 
SMALL HART -WoRT 

Tordylum officmale 


ny 


3. GREAT HART - WORT 
T. maxim 
4. CORTANDER 


Coriandrum sativam 
HEMLOCK 


Commum macnlatum 


FELP MD 


: = ny) ; 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 69 


*** * * * Kryit short and thick, not prickly nor beaked ; somewhat flatlened. 


30. Hemiock (Conium). 


Common Hemlock (C. maculdtum).—Stem smooth, spotted ; leaves 
thrice pinnate; leaflets lanceolate, pinnatifid, with acute, sometimes cleft, 
segments. Plant biennial. The tall dark-leaved Hemlock, with its stem of 
purplish-brown, spotted and striped with purple, is not uncommon on waste 
places, and about ruins and walls. The hollow stem is two or three feet 
high, much branched at the upper part, and bearing its umbels of white 
flowers in June and July. Although the foliage is of a dull green, yet it 
is remarkably elegant in form; and in some places the plant grows to a 
great size. When summer is over, its dead stalks rattle in the wind. 
Country people call them Kecksies ; and the Hemlock had the old name of 
Kex. In an old writer, we find one saying, “Ill make these withered 
Kexes bear my body.” The word Kick or Kex seems now entirely applied 
to the dried stalks. It is so in Kent; and Clare, who well knew all the 
common names of flowers in Northamptonshire, describing the summer 
scene by a river's side, says— 


‘Some went searching by the wood, As the cart-rut rippled down 
Peeping ‘neath the waving thorn, With the burden of the rain, 
Where the pouch-lipp’d cuckoo-bud Boys came drabbling from the town, 
From its snug retreat was torn ; Glad to meet their sports again ; 
Whiere the ragged-robin stood Stopping up their mimic rills 
With its piped stem streak’d with jet ; Till they forced their watery bound 
And the crow flowers, golden-hued, Then the Keck-made water-mills 
Careless plenty easier met. In the current whisk’d around.” 


Sheep are said to be the only domestic animals which will feed on the 
Hemlock ; nor do many insects choose its foliage for their food, though 
the song-thrush will make a meal of its seeds. To the skilful physician the 
plant affords a valuable means of alleviating human suffering; and the 
extract made from it is a sedative and alterative medicine. Considerable 
care is requisite in the preparation of the Hemlock for medicinal purpuses ; 
and, like all plants used as remedial agents, it is important that it should 
be gathered at the proper season. Vegetable physiologists have fully’ 
ascertained that during the growth of a plant remarkable changes occur 
in succession, both in its chemical composition and sensible qualities. The 
meadow saffron (Célchicum autumnile) may be instanced as a plant in which 
the properties are entirely changed during the progress of its development. 
The roots of valerian are of little worth unless taken from the ground in the 
autumnal season ; and the foxglove needs, in order that it may retain its 
properties, to be gathered just as it is coming into flower. The many who 
seek relief from the medicine afforded by the root of the dandelion would do 
well to lay in their store during the spring, as it is believed to be stronger in 
April than in any succeeding month, though at no season of the year are the 
properties of this root wholly inert. The root of henbane has scarcely any 
of its powers developed in spring, and if gathered just as the young shoots 
were emerging from the soil would be almost useless in medicine, though it 


70 UMBELLIFERA 


affords, when gathered in autumn, a powerful and valuable drug. Dr. Fother- 
gill remarked of the Hemlock: “I know from repeated experiments that the 
extract which has been prepared from this plant before it had arrived at 
maturity is much inferior to that which is made when the plant has 
acquired its full vigour, and is rather on the verge of decline; just when 
the flowers fade, the rudiments of the seeds (fruit) become observable, and 
the habit of the plant inclines to yellow, is the proper time for collecting 
the Hemlock.” 

The Hemlock has attained a general celebrity, from the belief that the 
poison drunk by Socrates was made from its juices. The Koneton of the 
ancients was evidently a powerful poison. It was given to him whom the 
Areopagus had condemned to death. It was swallowed by ancient philoso- 
phers who had grown weary of life and its cares and infirmities—by men who 
knew not the solemn truth that our lives are not our own, and who had never 
learned from Revelation that no life need be useless, since God may be 
honoured by patient suffering as much as by active service, by a resigned and 
thankful old age, as surely as by a fervid and vigorous youth. They came to 
their last repast as to a banquet, and, crowning themselves with garlands, 
drank the fatal Koneion, and surviving men praised the courage and fortitude 
which inspired them. Both Linneus and Lamarck believed that the juices of 
the Hemlock furnished the poison, though recent writers have assigned other 
plants as more probable, and the Dropwort Hemlock (the “nanthe crocata) 
has, as well as several other highly-poisonous herbs, been deemed the poison 
of the ancients. Professor Burnett remarks on this subject: ‘‘Theramenes 
and Phocion, as well as Socrates, were poisoned by the Konezon, and though 
the effects recorded in the ‘Phzdo’ are not exactly in correspondence with 
those which we should look for from the common Hemlock, it must be 
remembered, in the first place, that the difference of a more southern climate 
will affect the energy of the plant; and secondly, that the historian is not a 
physician from whom an exact detail of symptoms could be expected. That 
the modern Conium was the Koneion of the Greeks is rendered probable by 
its being very common in Peloponnesus—‘ most abundant,’ says Sibthorpe, 
‘between Athens and Megara’—and that the Cicuta virosa, inanthe phellan- 
drium, and Wthusa cynipium, which have been occasionally referred to, are not 
found in any part of that country.” 

The Hemlock is rarely eaten by mistake, but the old botanists recom- 
mended to such as had taken it inadvertently a draught of vinegar, ‘“ where- 
with Tragus doth affirm, that he cured a woman that had eaten the root”— 
a remedy still approved in cases where persons have eaten the berries of the 
deadly nightshade. The Hemlock is mentioned in Scripture ; thus the prophet 
Hosea says: “Judgment springeth up as Hemlock in the furrows of the 
field.” As the Hemlock, so common in our fields, is somewhat rare in those 
of the Holy Land, many commentators believe that some other plant is 
intended, and a species of nightshade has been supposed to be the Hem- 
lock of Scripture. It is, however, now quite impossible to determine 
with exactness what was the plant which formed the comparison of the 
prophet. The most learned of the Rabbins considered it to be the Conium 
maculdtum. 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 71 


31. BLADDER-SEED (Physospérmum). 


Cornish Bladder-seed (P. cornubiénse).—Root-leaves thrice ternate ; 
leaflets wedge-shaped, cut, or deeply three-lobed, with acute segments ; stem- 
leaves ternate, few, the segments long and narrow. Plant perennial. This 
rare plant is found in Cornwall and on the borders of the neighbouring county 
of Devonshire. It has a stem a foot and a half high, and bears its terminal 
umbel of white flowers in July and August. The coat of the carpel is so 
loose that the seed may be shaken about in it. 


32. ALEXANDERS (Simijrnium). 


Common Alexanders (S. olusdtrwm).—Stem round; stem-leaves ter- 
nate, stalked, serrate. Root biennial. The word olusatrwm—derived from 
olus, pot-herb, and atrum, black, must refer rather to the colour of the ripened 
fruit than to the foliage or stems of this plant. It is truly remarkable for its 
bright, glossy, green foliage, and during February the young sprays of leaflets 
give the hedge-bank a degree of rich verdure afforded at that season by no 
other plant. The Alexanders grows on waste places, among ruins, but most 
especially near salt rivers or the sea; often abounding in great quantity on 
the sea cliffs, as it does on those of Dover, and looking in early spring the 
brightest thing there, save the clumps of yellow wallflowers. By April the 
dense rounded clusters of greenish-yellow flowers are very numerous, and the 
broad membranous bases of the leaf-stalks are swollen out into very con- 
spicuous sheaths. A month later, and the dark aromatic fruits succeed the 
flowers, and by September the pale withered stalks seem the skeletons of the 
departed plant. Many persons think the odour of this herb agreeable, and 
that it resembles that of celery ; and although we may not agree with them, 
yet it is quite certain that the flavour of the Alexanders was liked, and the 
plant cultivated by our forefathers. Parkinson, in describing the “ ordering 
of the kitchen-garden ” in his time (1629), says: ‘ Alisanders are to be sowne 
of seede, the tops of the rootes with the greene leaves are used in Lent espe- 
cially” ; and the plant was eaten, both boiled and as a salad, before the use of 
celery had become general. The Italians introduced the culture of the latter 
vegetable in the seventeenth century ; and after that time, not only the 
Alexanders, but several other herbs then in common culture became less’ 
used. It was the young shoots principally which were dressed for the tables 
of the olden times, and these, quite early in the spring, have an odour not 
altogether unpleasant, reminding us a little of what Pliny said of the 
plant—that it had the flavour of myrrh. The modern taste for vegetables 
may be said to be more cultivated than that of earlier days, when the kitchen- 
garden was scantily supplied. What Parkinson says of the habits of people 
in his time, with regard to vegetables, was doubtless true to an even greater 
extent two or three centuries sooner. In treating of “the manner of order- 
ing of many sortes of herbes and rootes for sallets,” he says, “if I should set 
downe all the sortes of herbes that are usually gathered for sallets, I should not 
onely speake of garden herbes, but of many herbes which grow wilde in the 
fields, or else be but weedes in a garden ; for the usuall manner with manie 
is to take the yong buds and leaves of everything, almost, that groweth, as 


(ee UMBELLIFERA 


well in the garden as in the fields, and put them all together, that the taste 
of the one may amende the relishe of the other.” It must be remembered 
that most of the writers of this period used their word “sallet” in a wider 
sense than we do our “salad.” They included in the description of sallets 
such plants as the asparagus, which were used only in a cooked condition ; 
and our word “edible” expresses what they meant. They were content with 
such plants as grew wild, because they knew few others; yet there are but a 
small number of our native vegetables which afford, even when cultivated, a 
good and wholesome food ; for most of those seen at our tables are, like our 
potatoes, French beans, peas, lettuces, onions, and radishes, the product of 
distant soils. The frequent wars of the earlier times prevented men from 
cultivating the land for anything, save such produce as was necessary to sus- 
tain life, though during periods of peace horticulture made some little pro- 
gress. Doubtless, the description of Harrison is true: “Such herbes and 
fruits,” he says, ‘as grow yeerlie out of the ground of seed, have been verie 
plentiful in this land in the time of the first Edward, and after his daies ; but 
in processe of time they grew also to be neglected, so that from Henrie the 
Fourth, till the latter end of Henrie the Seventh, and beginning of Henrie the 
Kighth, there was little or no use of them in England, but they remained 
either unknowne, or supposed as food more meet for hogs and savage beasts to 
feed upon than mankind ; whereas in my time their use is not onely resumed 
among the poore commons, I mean of melons, pompions, gourds, cucumbers, 
radishes, skerrits, parsneps, carrets, cabbages, navews, turneps, and all kindes 
of salad herbes ; but also fed upon in daintie dishes, at the tables of delicate 
merchants, gentlemen, and the nobilitie, who make their provision yearlie for 
new seeds out of strange countries, from whence they have them aboun- 
dantlie.” Hume tells us, that when Catharine of Arragon wanted a salad she 
had to despatch a person to Flanders to procure one. Some kind of salad 
might, however, have been doubtless procured for the Queen in England, 
though it was probably so inferior to that to which in her earlier days she had 
been accustomed, that she might not choose such a dish to appear at her table. 
It is likely that it would have been mainly composed of some herbs which, as 
Evelyn says of mushrooms, “ Nature affords her vagabonds under every 
hedge” ; but winter-cresses, water-cresses, lamb’s-lettuce, Alexanders, sam- 
phire, chervil, rampions, and rockets, were even then commonly used as 
salads ; and the goosefoots and oraches were boiled for the tables of those 
who could not procure the more expensive carrots, parsnips, and skirrets. 
Doubtless, many a one provided himself like a character in Albion’s 
England :— 
** A sheeve of bread as brown as nut. 
And cheese as white as snowe, 


And wildings of the season’s fruite 
He did in scrip bestowe.” 


The stem of the Alexanders is very stout, furrowed, and often three or 
four feet in height. The name Smyrniwm is synonymous with myrrh. The 
plant is called Smyrnerkraut by the Germans ; Muceron by the French; and 
Macerone by the Italians. The young shoots, when boiled, are said to 
resemble asparagus in flavour. Pennant mentions that they were boiled and 


A WILD BEAKED - PARSLEY 
Amthriscaus sylvestris 


CORNISH BLADDER- SEED 
Physosperuram Cornubiense 


l 
GARDEN 3B .P 


A. cerefolum 


on 


2 COMMON ALEXANDERS 
Siayrmmm ohisatromn. 
SHEPHERDS WEEDLE 6 COMMON B.P 
A. vnlgaris 


Scandrx pecten-veneris 


Pl. 96. 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 73 


eaten by sailors, who, in returning from long voyages, happened to land on 
the south-west coast of the Isle of Anglesey, where the plant is abundant. 


*#***¥* * * Bruit oblong, usually more or less beaked. 
33. SHEPHERD’S-NEEDLE (Scdndiz). 


Common Shepherd’s-needle (S. pécten-veneris).—Beak much longer 
than the roughish fruit, compressed and fringed with fine stiff hairs ; leaves 
thrice pinnate, segments short and slender. Plant annual. A common and 
a troublesome weed is this plant, for it is found in almost every corn-field, 
from May to September, and in some fields seems almost as abundant as the 
corn itself. Those who are at all observant of wild flowers recognise it at 
once by the shape of its beaked fruits. The flowers grow in small umbels, 
and are white ; and one would not suppose, from their size, that they could 
produce the bunches of long, sharp-pointed fruits, which we may often see 
at the same time on another part of the plant. These fruits are bright 
green, some of them two or three inches long, and sharp enough to merit the 
names applied to the plant, of Shepherd’s-needle, Pucker-needle, and Venus'’s- 
comb. The plant is from three or four inches to a foot high, of uniform 
bright green colour. It is quite wholesome, and was formerly used as a 
pot-herb. It is supposed to be the same species as that which the ancient 
Greeks used as food. 


34. BEAKED PARSLEY (Anthriscus). 


1. Wild Beaked Parsley (4. sylvéstris).—Stem hairy below, smooth 
above, swelling a little below each joint; leaves twice pinnate ; leaflets 
pinnatifid ; fruit linear, beaked, and smooth. Plant perennial. This is the 
first of all our umbelliferous plants to lend its white umbels to grace the 
hedges or field-borders. As early as the end of March, the flowers appear, 
their clusters drooping at first, but afterwards becoming erect. The stem is 
three or four feet high, furrowed and branched, and having many leaves, 
The whole plant is somewhat aromatic, and is eaten in some parts of the 
kingdom, where it is called Wild Chervil; but being a favourite food of 
rabbits, it is more frequently gathered for their use than for that of man. 
It is not unfrequent, and it continues in flower till June, when its oblong 
fruits with very short beaks may be seen, and the foliage has assumed the. 
dark, somewhat dull green which the plant has when fully grown. It 
affords good herbage for cattle, and is a favourite food of kine. Though the 
foliage is wholesome for man, yet the roots are poisonous, and, when they 
have been eaten as parsnips, have in some cases proved fatal. Professor 
Burnett remarks, that it is a plant of good omen; for, as it will grow only 
on rich ground, it is an index of the nature and condition of the soil. The 
flowers give a good yellow dye, and the leaves afford a bright green tint. 

2. Garden Beaked Parsley, or Chervil (A. cerefélium).—Stem hairy 
above the joints only; umbels lateral and sessile; leaves thrice pinnate ; 
leaflets pinnatifid; fruit large, linear, smooth, with a beak about half its 
length. Plant annual. The white flowers of this plant appear from May to 
June. It is not truly wild, though growing in many hedges in this kingdom, 
and in the neighbourhood of gardens. It was once much esteemed as a pot- 

11.—10 


74 UMBELLIFERA: 


herb, and was also used for salads, and to give flavour to soups. The stem 
of the Chervil is slender, about a foot or a foot and a half high; and the 
whole plant is very delicate and graceful, and of pale yellowish-green. It is 
the Cerfeuil of the French ; the Kalberkropf of the Germans ; the Kervel of the 
Dutch ; the Cerfoglio of the Italians. 

3. Common Beaked Parsley (4. vulgdris).—Umbels stalked, opposite 
the leaves , stem smooth; leaves thrice pinnate; leaflets pinnatifid; fruit 
rather large, egg-shaped, and bristly, with a short smooth beak. Plant 
annual. This wild Chervil has some general resemblance to the Sweet 
Chervil of the garden, though its stem is taller and thicker, and swollen 
beneath each joint. It is more often found near towns and villages than 
elsewhere, and is not uncommon on waste places and by road-sides. The 
small white flowers expand in May and June. The foliage is considered 
unwholesome, and is said, by its resemblance to the garden Chervil, to have 
misled some Dutch sailors who were in England in 1745, and who, having 
put it into soups, were rendered ill by its use, while to some of their number 
it proved fatal. Yet Hooker jils says it was formerly cultivated as a pot- 
herb. 


35. CHERVIL (Cherophyllum). 


1. Rough Chervil (C. ¢emuléntum).—Stem round, rough, and spotted, 
swelling below each joint; leaves broadly oblong, pinnatifid, with spine- 
tipped segments. Plant biennial. The tall stems of this plant, often attain- 
ing the height of three feet, render it very conspicuous in hedges and among 
bushes during June and July. The umbels of the flowers are white, and at 
first drooping ; and the short beaks of the fruit, in this as well as the other 
species, procured for it its French name of Cerfewil & fruits courts. The 
Germans call the plant Ranke Kerbel, and it is the /Vilde Kervel of the Dutch. 
This herb is said to possess very dangerous properties, and, when eaten, to 
produce giddiness. A species of this Chervil (C. bulbésum), which we are 
accustomed to consider deleterious, but which is sometimes found in our 
gardens, is, however, used with safety in cookery by the Kalmucks, and the 
root is eaten in its uncooked state. These people consider the plant as 
affording a nutritious and excellent food ; but it is likely that climate affects 
its properties. 

2. Tawny-fruited Chervil (C. mirewm).—Stem swelling below the 
joints, rough; leaves thrice pinnate; leaflets pinnatifid. Plant perennial. 
Sir William Hooker and Dr. Arnott remark of this plant: “ Leaflets 
peculiarly attenuated, at least on the upper leaves (for the radical ones are 
more obtuse), a character which distinguishes this from every other British 
species.” The stem is from three to four feet high, angular and spotted, and 
the umbels of white flowers appear in June. It has an aromatic odour. 
George Don reported that he had found it in fields near Montrose, and at 
Corstorphine, Edinburgh, but though these localities have been repeatedly 
searched, no one has succeeded in substantiating his record. 

3. Broad-leaved Chervil (C. aromédticum).—Leaves twice pinnate ; 
leaflets undivided, serrated, and tapering to a sharp point; root perennial. 
This plant, which grows to the height of about two or three feet, was 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 75 


reported by Mr. Don as occurring at the side of the river Lunan, near 
Guthrie, in Forfarshire, but no other botanist has ever recorded it as grow- 
ing in this country—a peculiarity of so many of Don’s records of rarities. 


36. CiceLy (Myrrhis). 


Sweet Cicely (J/. odordta).—Leaves somewhat downy beneath, very 
large, and thrice pinnate, with pinnatifid leaflets ; bracts of the partial invo- 
lucres long and pointed. Plant perennial. This is, perhaps, not a truly 
wild plant, for it is usually found near houses, where it may have grown in 
gardens. It was called also Sweet Chervil, and praised because it had, 
“besides its pleasantness in salads, great physicall virtues.” The old 
herbalists describe it as “so harmless, that you cannot use it amiss ;” and 
told that its roots was held as “effectual as that of Angelica to preserve 
from infection in the time of the Plague.” These roots, boiled and eaten 
with oil and vinegar, were regarded as tonic. The whole plant is aromatic, 
and the root very powerfully so. Parkinson remarks: “This herbe is much 
used both by the French and Dutch, who doe much more delight in herbes 
of stronger taste than the English doe. It is sowne early, and used but a 
little while, because it quickly runneth up to seede. Sweete Chervil, or as 
some call it, Sweete Cis, is so like in the taste unto anise seede, that it much 
delighteth the taste among other herbes as a sallet. The rootes likewise are 
not onely cordiall, but also held to be preservative against the Plague, either 
when greene, dryed, or preserved with sugar.” 

The odour of the foliage of this plant is certainly very agreeable, though 
we doubt if the root “made into tarts ” would please modern palates. The 
(termans yet use the seeds very generally in cookery ; and in the north of 
England they were, some years since, used to polish oaken floors and furni- 
ture ; but oaken floors are gradually disappearing now, and hence the plant 
is altogether in less request. The large fruits are sometimes nearly an inch 
long, dark brown, and extremely fragrant. 

The Sweet Cicely occurs frequently in pastures at the north of England, 
and in the Lowlands of Scotland. The stem is two or three feet high, the 
umbels terminal, and composed of numerous white flowers, which are pro- 
duced in May and June; the upper surfaces of the leaves are bright and 


glossy. 
**¥ ee ee * * Hyrwit not beaked, clothed with prickles, or with a 
prickly involucre. 


37, CARROT (Daiicus). 


1. Wild Carrot (D. caréta).—Leaves thrice pinnate ; leaflets pinnatifid, 
segments narrow and acute; prickles of fruit slender, mostly distinct and 
spreading. Plant biennial. Scarcely one of the umbelliferous tribe, common 
as some of them are, is more frequent than this plant in our hedges, field- 
borders, and meadows. Its beautifully cut leaves, which in spring are of a 
most tender green, are very elegant as they unfold in May on the sunny 
bank, and in autumn are tinted with a golden hue, or reddened into purple 
or crimson. The umbels of the flowers stand, during June and July, on a 
stem a foot or more in height. They are white, more or less tinted with 

10—2 


76 UMBELLIFER At 


pink, but often having one peculiarity which renders the Wild Carrot’s 
blossom easy of recognition. The central flower of the umbel is of dark 
purplish-red ; and though this often falls early, yet in the first stage of the 
flower it is in most cases present. The umbel, when in fruit, is usually 
remarkably concave, and naturally enough suggested one of the familiar 
country names of the flower, Bird’s-nest. A bird’s-nest literally we know it 
cannot be, yet it is often the nightly dormitory of a species of bee, that 
folds its weary wings, and slumbers in the well-sheltered hollow afforded by 
the long stalks of the umbel, which, especially in damp weather and during 
night, coil inwards at the top, and would well exclude the shower or dews. 
The root is pale yellow, and we have never seen it of the bright orange hue 
of the garden Carrot, though its odour is so like that of the well-known 
vegetable, as to leave no doubt of its affinity with it. ‘Tough as this root is 
in its wild state, it is by most botanists believed to be the origin of the culti- 
vated Carrot; and the latter may be cited as one of the many instances of 
the singular improvement wrought by care and skill on a wild and apparently 
useless root. Miller and some other horticulturists, it is true, have planted 
the Wild Carrot, and after taking much pains to change it into the esculent 
root, have been unable to do so; but, on the other hand, Professor Buckman 
says he has had reports of success from friends who have experimented in 
cultivating it. 

The Carrot is supposed to be the Staphylinos of Dioscorides, and, like other 
plants named by the ancients, has been the subject of some learned discus- 
sions. The description of the plant given by the Greek physician corresponds 
in every respect with the Carrot, and he remarks that the root not only grew 
wild, but was cultivated as an esculent. He describes it, too, as bearing 
umbels of white flowers, which are in the middle of a purple-red, or almost 
saffron-red colour. The Greeks call it also Daucus, and that earliest writer on 
cookery, Apicius, terms the plant Carota, but many writers think that the 
Pastinaca of the Greeks was the Carrot. It was from the ancient name of 
Carota that the French Carrotte, the Italian Carota, and the English Carrot 
were derived. The Spaniards call the plant Zanahoria ; the Dutch Peen ; 
and Mohre is a common name for the plant in Germany. Beckmann is of 
opinion that though the Greeks and Romans were certainly acquainted with 
our Carrot, they used it far less, both in cookery and as fodder for cattle 
than the moderns do, which would account for its not very frequent mention 
in their works. 

We owe to the Flemings chiefly the use of the Carrot as an addition to 
our vegetable diet, and in early periods they seem to have been among the 
best of European horticulturists. When the tyranny of Philip II. drove 
many of his subjects from their homes, in the time of our Queen Elizabeth, 
a large number of the Flemish refugees came and resided in England. Some 
of them finding the soil about Sandwich, in Kent, well suited for the growth 
of the Carrot, soon cultivated the vegetable, which had been introduced a 
few years earlier, and the new edible at once recommended itself by its 
flavour and nutriment, and became a general plant of the kitchen-garden ; 
while many varieties, produced by climate and culture, soon became well 
known to gardeners. The long and horn Carrots, the two kinds generally 


erat 


ic 
Oh 
aR 


0 


ly 
9% 


rte 


Cc 


BROAD- LEAVED 


3 


GH CHERVIL 
Cherophyllum temnlentam 
TAWNY FRUITED.c ; 


\ 
ROU’ 


1 


SWEET CICELY 


A 


2 


Myrrhis odorata 


C. aurenm 


WILD. CARROT 


5 


Daucus carota 


Wa |: Act 


rp) hn ath, 
, me 
Bax Lay 
DS) Le ih, es 
Ay) 
4 


2 in " 
P wy 
<i ; 


UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 77 


grown, form several sub-varieties, which differ chiefly in the size and colour 
of the root. The red, or large field Carrot, is sown mostly in fields for 
cattle ; but the more delicately-flavoured kind, termed the Orange Carrot, 
though not so productive, is better fitted for the table, and is usually sown 
in gardens. ‘There are also white, yellow, and purple rooted varieties of the 
Carrot. Their size differs much according to soil and culture, but Carrots 
have been known to measure two feet in length, and from twelve to fourteen 
inches in circumference at the thickest part of the root. Michael Drayton, 
in the “Poly-olbion,” gives us a list of the choicest vegetables in use in his 
day, and classes the Carrot among them :— 
‘« The colewort, colliflower, and cabbage in their season, 

The rouncefall great, beans, and early ripening peason ; 

The onion, scallion, leek, which housewives highly rate, 

Their kinsman garlic, then the poor man’s Mithridate ; 

The savoury parsnip next, and Carrot, pleasing food, 

The skirret, which some say, in salads stirs the blood ; 

The turnep, tasting well to clowns in winter weather, 

Thus in one verse we put roots, herbes, and fruits together : 

The great moist pompion then, that on the ground doth lie, 

A purer of this kind, the sweet musk mellon by, 

Which dainty palates now, because they would not want, 

Have kindly learnt to set, as yearly to transplant.” 

Sheep, horses, and cows are very extensively fed upon Carrots ; poultry 
thrive well on these roots, and in some severe winters they have proved very 
useful food for deer. They contain a greater portion of saccharine matter 
than can be found in any of the Cerealia, the dried Carrot yielding an eighth 
part of this substance in combination with starch. This quantity of sugary 
substance has induced experimentalists to endeavour to make sugar from the 
root, but without success, as it would not form crystals. 

The wild Carrot is in flower in June and July, and the blossoms are 
succeeded by the rough bristly fruits. The hairs on their surface are so 
forked and numerous, that the separation of the carpels, in order to get at 
the seeds, is a work of difficulty, as they adhere so very closely. The leaves 
are sometimes a foot long, and so graceful that we wonder not that in the 
time of James I., when the cultivated plant was rare, the courtly dames wore 
the tasteful plume in halls and palaces. Few leaves, indeed, are more 
elegant ; and Loudon has pointed out that, if in the winter a section be cut 
from the end or thick part of the carrot, and this be placed in a shallow 
vessel, containing water, young and delicate leaves are developed, forming a 
radiated tuft, the graceful and verdant effect of which makes it a pleasing 
ornament for the mantel-piece in that season, when any semblance of vegeta- 
tion is a welcome relief to the eye. 

The old herbalists applied the Carrot-leaves to wounds, and considered a 
decoction good for the dropsy, preferring the wild to the garden roots. 

2. Sea-side Carrot (D. maritimus).—Leaves thrice pinnate; leaflets 
pinnatifid, with rounded segments; root biennial. This plant, which is 
usually shorter and thicker than the common Carrot, is probably but a 
variety of it. It differs from that in having broader and more fleshy root- 
leaves, convex instead of concave umbels, and stouter prickles on its fruits. 
The flowers are usually white, though in some cases tinged with red; and 


78 UMBELLIFERA.A—UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 


in one variety of the plant the petals are fringed, and of greenish-yellow. 
It blooms in July and August, and the umbels, when in seed, are either. 
convex or flat. It is the D. gummifer of Lamarck, and Sir J. D. Hooker 
regards it as a sub-species of D. carota. 


38. Bur PARSLEY (Caiicalis). 


1. Small Bur Parsley (C. daucotdes).—Leaves twice pinnate ; leaflets 
pinnatifid, with narrow acute segments; umbels of few rays ; general invo- 
lucre none ; partial involucre of about three leaves. Plant annual. This is 
well named Bur Parsley, for the large oblong fruits, beset with prickles, are 
truly burs, clinging very readily to any object near them, and so getting 
their seeds distributed. This is a low plant, the stem often about three or 
four inches, though sometimes twelve in height. It occurs in chalky corn- 
fields in the south and east of England ; also in the Channel Islands. Its 
deeply-furrowed stems are hairy at the joints, and it bears, in June, both 
terminal and lateral umbels of small reddish-white flowers. It is a trouble- 
some weed in cultivated lands, being of no service to man, and unfit for 
pasture. The French call the Bur Parsley Cawcalide ; the Germans Haftdolde ; 
the Dutch Doornzaad. It is the Caucali of the Italians, the Caucalide of the 
Spaniards, and the Beterluus of the Danes. 

2. Great Bur Parsley (C. latifdlia).—Leaves pinnate, running down 
the stem, coarsely serrated ; involucres membranous ; fruit very rough, with 
prickles ; root annual. This rare plant is a doubtful native of corn-fields on 
a chalky soil. It is occasionally found between Cambridgeshire and Glouces- 
tershire; also in Somerset, South Wales, and Hertfordshire. Even an 
unpractised botanist would detect it by its showy pink flowers, and the 
large oblong prickly fruits which succeed them. The stem is one or two 
feet high, and very rough; the leaves broad, and little divided. It is in 
flower in July. 


39. HEDGE PARSLEY (Zorilis). 


1. Upright Hedge Parsley (7. anthriscus).—Leaves twice pinnate ; 
leaflets oblong, deeply serrated ; umbels terminal and stalked ; partial invo- 
lucres of many leaves; root annual. This is a tall slender plant, with a 
stem two or three feet high, solid and rough. The leaves are hairy, and the 
flowers, which appear in July and August, are small, and either white or of 
a pinkish hue. The fruit is thickly covered with bristles, which are not 
hooked. It occurs on hedge-banks and field-borders. 

2. Spreading Hedge Parsley (7. infésta).—Leaves twice pinnate ; 
leaflets cut and serrated; umbels stalked, terminal; general involucre none, 
or of one leaf, partial of a few awl-shaped leaves; fruit with spreading 
hooked prickles. Plant annual. The specific name given to this Hedge 
Parsley might apply to all the plants in the genus, for they are all useless 
and ‘‘troublesome,” abounding in fields and waysides. This species is much 
smaller than the last, its branched stem being from six to eighteen inches in 
height, and the foliage very rigid. The prickles form a thick mass on the 
fruits. The plant, which is regarded by Watson as an introduced species, 
is very common in fields or on waste places south of Yorkshire. 


SEA SIDE CARROT é UPRIGHT HEDGE PARSLEY 
Daucus matitumms Torths anthriscus 
2 SMALL BUR PARSLEY 5 SPREADING H.P 
Camcahs danucoides T mfesta 
3 GREAT BUR PARSLEY 6 KNOTTED HH. 
C latifolia T nodosa 
& SEA SIDE PRICHTY SAMPHIRE 


Ecbinophora spimosa 


ss 
we : 


x 


. 


Qa 


x 


ARALIACEAI—IVY TRIBE 79 


3. Knotted Hedge Parsley (7. nodésa).—Stem prostrate ; lower leaves 
twice pinnate, upper ones pinnate ; leaflets deeply and uniformly pinnated ; 
umbels nearly sessile, and lateral. Plant annual. This very common species, 
in hedges and waste places on chalky soil, is distinguished from the others 
by its prostrate mode of growth, and the small almost globose umbels of 
reddish-white flowers, which, from May to July, are almost seated upon it. 
It takes its specific name from the little knots or warts which are often on 
the inner fruits of the umbel, the outer ones being covered with hooked 
bristles. 


40, PRICKLY SAMPHIRE (Echindphora). 


Sea-side Prickly Samphire (#. spindsa).—Leaves pinnate ; leaflets 
pinnatifid, with spinous, entire, awl-shaped segments. This singular prickly 
plant is said to have formerly grown on some parts of the sandy shores of 
Kent and Lancashire, and it has been recorded from Dorset, though without 
confirmation. The perennial roots are said to taste like those of the parsnip, 
with some flavour of salt, and are thought to possess a stimulating quality. 
It is sometimes called Sea Parsnip. 


Order XXXIX. ARALIACEA—IVY TRIBE. 


Calyx 4—5 toothed, attached to the ovary ; petals 4—16, rarely wanting; 
stamens equalling the petals in number, or twice as many, inserted on the 
ovary ; ovary with two or more cells ; styles as many as the cells ; fruit fleshy 
or dry, of several cells, each containing one seed. This is nearly allied to the 
umbelliferous tribe in the structure of the flower, but differing both in the 
nature of the fruit and in properties, the order containing no plants that 
are deleterious. The Ivy and the Adoxa are the only British genera, but the 
famous Ginseng of the Chinese, the Panax, whose very name signifies ‘universal 
remedy,” belongs to this family. This plant is used in almost every medicine 
taken by the Tartars and Chinese. Osbeck says that he never looked into 
the apothecaries’ shops but they were always selling Ginseng ; that both rich 
and poor used it constantly, infusing half an ounce in their tea and soup - 
every morning, as a remedy for consumption and other diseases. The 
physicians of China have written volumes on its medicinal powers, stating 
that it gives immediate relief in extreme fatigue, either of body or mind. 
Yet European physicians can detect in this root very little of those qualities 
which would ensure its efficacy as a medicine. 

1. MoscHATEL (4déxa).—Calyx 3-cleft, inserted above the base of the 
ovary ; corolla 4 or 5-cleft, inserted on the ovary ; stamens 8 or 10, in pairs ; 
anthers 1-celled; berry 4 or 5-celled. Name in Greek signifying without 
glory, from its humble appearance. This genus is by some authors included 
in the Caprifolracee. 

2. Ivy (Hédera).—Calyx of 5 teeth, inserted in the ovary ; petals 5—10; 
stamens 5—10; styles 5—10, often combined into one ; berry 5-celled and 5- 
seeded, crowned by the calyx. Name, the Latin name of the plant. 


80 ARALIACEA 


1. MoscHaTEL (Adéza). 


Tuberous Moschatel (4. moschatéllinw).—Leaves from the root on 
very long foot-stalks, twice ternate, lobed, and cut; stem-leaves 2, small and 
ternate ; root white, fleshy, toothed, creeping and perennial. It is pleasant 
when spring is just coming on, to stroll away to the -hedge-banks and inhale 
the odour of green leaves, and primroses, and violets, and to look for the 
Moschatel, which will need looking for among the dried leaves of last year, 
and the budding leaves of this. Bishop Mant describes the place in which 
we may find it :— 

“« There in the hollow lane, whose sides 
The native rock o’erarching hides, 
While from its moss-green fissures well 


The trickling drops, the Moschatel 
Peep’d meekly from her rocky bed.” 


It has been said by another poet that— 
‘* Adoxa loves the green-wood shade ;” 


and it is usually in some shady nook of wood or hedge-bank that we find the 
delicate little flower. The foliage is of pale green, and the hue of the flower 
resembles that of the leaf, but is somewhat more yellow. The blossoms grow 
in terminal heads of five each, the upper one with four petals and eight 
stamens ; the four flowers surrounding it having five petals and ten stamens 
each : the stamens are remarkable for being inserted in pairs, and for bearing 
one-celled anthers. 

We used, in early days, to call this “Good-Friday Flower ;” for, whether 
that day fell late or early in spring, this plant would be in blossom, as it is 
so from the latter end of March till the middle of May. It has several rustic 
names, as Glory-less, Bulbous Fumitory, Hollow-root, and Musk Crowfoot. 
The musky odour to which it owes its last name is most perceptible in the 
evening, a circumstance which, the author has remarked, seems common to 
all those of our wild flowers which smell of musk, and which is more distinctly 
observable in some others, as the Musky Heron’s-bill, and the Musk Mallow. 
The French call the flower Moscatelline, the Germans Bisamkriutchen ; the 
Dutch term it Muskuskrwid, and the Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese, 
Moscatelina. It seems common among bushes and trees in most European 
countries, and is the Desmerurt of the Danes, and the Desmansért of the Swedes. 
Sir William Hooker remarks that it is not unfrequent at a great elevation, 
and even near the tops of the Highland mountains. The following lines were 
written by Mr. F. A. Paley, for this volume :— 


“Tur Frrst SPRING FLOWERS. 


‘* When dreary March has pass’d away, ‘* Here bounteous Nature loves to fling 
Give me by sunny bank to stray ; The treasures of the opening spring, 
A bank whose southern aspect gleams Where no rude wanderer hastes to tear 
From morn to eve with spring’s first beams, The first form’d flow’ret of the year, 
Secured from frost and breezes keen, But every plant that cheers my eyes, 
By sombre yew’s impervious screen, Unharm’d, yet not unnoticed dies. 
Or back’d by woodland’s sheltering shade— Now, peering from its leafy bed, 
A peaceful and a lonely glade, The earliest primrose rear’d its head, 
And sloping to a streamlet’s side, With violet buds, a fearless few, 


Where heard, not seen, the waters glide. Full many a week ere huds were due. 


1 TUBEROUS MOSCHATETL 3 WILD CORNEL 


Adaxa moschatellina Cornus sanguinea 
Zz COMMON IVY 4 DWARF CORNELL 


He dera hel>= C. swecica 
&. MISTLETOE 
Viscum album 


Pl. 99. 


IVY TRIBE si 


Foremost to deck the sun-warm’d soil, ““The whitethorn branches overhead, 

' The arum shows her speckled coil ; Their showers of tiny petals shed ; 
Or glossy leaves of blue-bell rose A second snow, when snows are past, 
Impatient from their long repose. And balmy airs are come at last. 
Trim mercury might there be seen 
With undevelop’d spikelets green ; ‘*Through all the vale, above, around, 


The skies with merry notes resound ; 
The wren and robin, roving free, 
Sing to the sunshine cheerily, 

No longer hid beneath the thorn, 
Nor crouching in the lanes forlorn. 


‘© Or gaily glittering from afar 
The spangled pilewort’s burnish’d star ; 
Now, tempted by the warmer glow, 
The tender starwort dares to blow ; 
Anemone with pensive bell, 
And tufts of scented Moschatel ; 


Veronica, whose eye of blue ‘* So spend an hour, and you shall prove 
Mingles with coltsfoot’s golden hue ; That ’tis an easy thing to love, — 

And daisy,* with expanded ray, Love birds, love flowers, love nature gay, 
Fit emblem of the opening day. Love Him who made the April day.” 


2. Ivy (Hédera). 


Common Ivy (H. hélix).—Leaves egg-shaped, or heart-shaped, with 
from 3 to 5 angular lobes; umbel simple, erect, downy. Plant perennial. 
The large masses of green ivy on some of our old walls or lofty trees are 
among the most picturesque objects of the landscape, and afford continually 
to the artist and poet some grace of form or colour, or some interesting 
association. 

There are few of us who cannot recall some ancient church or castle, or 
mouldering arch, or patriarchal tree, covered more or less with its beautiful 
verdure ; and many have seen old trunks of ivy which must have been the 
growth of centuries. Such is the Ivy which grows around an old ash-tree 
near the ruins of Fountains Abbey, with its trunk three feet two inches in 
girth ; such is that Ivy which grows against a broken wall of the ancient 
Richborough Castle, in Kent. Amid these decayed remnants of grandeur 
the old Ivy is still verdant, and while its aged trunk seems almost imbedded 
in the masonry, its branches spread far and wide, and with their bright 
though dark-green canopy shelter the song-birds, which sing as gladly now 
as they did in the time of that old castle’s pride. Of many an ancient 
abbey we may say, in the words of Robert Nicholls: 

‘The Ivy clings about the ruin’d walls 

Of cell and chapel, and refectory ; 

An oak-tree’s shadow, cloud-like, ever falls 
Upon the spot where stood the altar high ; 
The chambers all are open to the sky ; 

A goat is feeding where the praying knelt ; 
The daisy rears its ever open eye 

Where the proud Abbot in his grandeur dwelt : 

These signs of Time and Change the hardest heart might melt.” 

It is likely that the Ivy often, by its shelter, and by the strong frame- 
work of its branches, supports the ancient edifice, and prevents its entire 
destruction. To it we doubtless owe all that now remains of those strong 
walls reared by our forefathers in their fortresses and monastic institutions. 
Both Mr. Loudon and Dr. Lindley considered that its growth by the side of 
a well-built house is rather beneficial than otherwise, as it keeps the walls 
dry. “Ivy,” said the latter writer, ‘may render a house damp by retaining 


* Day’s eye. 
1.—11 


82 ARALIACEA 


snow in winter, which changes to water, trickles down the walls, and never 
thoroughly evaporates. But this is of rare occurrence, and may be prevented 
by beating the ivy after snowstorms, and will only be found an inconvenience 
when houses are built with mud. No doubt, when walls are not of sound 
brickwork, or of some other hard materials, the Ivy may introduce its roots 
into the masonry, and thus do mischief, allowing water to run down its 
branches, and to follow them into the crevices where they have insinuated 
themselves; but in all cases of well-built houses we are convinced that Ivy 
is beneficial, so far as keeping the walls dry.” Assuredly the Ivy, with its 
glossy verdure, never falling into the sere and yellow leaf, is a great addition 
to the beauty of a building. Those, too, who love the songs of early birds, 
of the cheerful robin or wren, of merry thrush or whistling blackbird, may 
rejoice in thinking how that well-clad bough shelters the young nestlings 
before their wings are fitted for flight, or their voices for song. Thrushes, 
fieldfares, blackbirds, and wood-pigeons prize the chocolate berries, which 
are fresh and juicy when haws and hips, blackberries, and fruits of the 
mountain-ash, have passed away. ‘True it is that the Ivy-bough sometimes 
shelters the owls, which may scare away our sleep by their strange and 
mournful tones ; true it is that the spider weaves its tracery among it, and 
sometimes finds its way into the open windows ; but, on the other hand, 
what a store of honey do its flowers supply to bees and butterflies, when all 
flowers save themselves are dying or dead, and when the insect world will 
soon perish by cold or hunger, or wait, under other forms, the reviving 
influence of spring! Late in the year myriads of flies resort to the ivy 
cluster, and hovering about these blossoms, on brilliant wings, may be seen 
the Red Admiral butterfly, and the Painted Lady, and many a less showy, 
but not less beautifully formed and tinted insect, from the sober and busy 
bee to the golden hornet or the gauzy fly. 

But beautiful as the Ivy may be over ancient chapel or modern dwelling, 
yet its own picturesque grace is more distinctly seen when the plant climbs 
to the summit of the aged tree, sending out its sprays to garland every 
bough. Few objects can be more beautiful than an Ivy so situated, especially 
if some more light and delicate green foliage, belonging to the tree around 
which it twines, falls down among its dark festoons. When time has stripped 
the tree of its own leaves, or winter winds have scattered them, then, too, 
the dark, white-veined leaves are very beautiful, and no lover of scenery can 
fail to mark this decoration. The leaves vary much in form at different 
periods of the growth of the plant. When young, they are three or five 
lobed, strongly veined with white, while a degree of redness often tinges both 
leaf and stem. As the plant grows older, the shape of the leaf differs, often 
becoming less lobed ; and the green hue is brighter, and more glossy. The 
plant creeps along, and sends out tufts of roots quite different from the line 
of pegs by which it clings to a wall or trunk of a tree. The Ivy does not 
merit the charge of being a parasite. It is not— 


‘«The Ivy which had hid the princely trunk, 
And suck’d the verdure out on’t.” 


Its pegs are not true roots; they are not like the roots of the mistletoe ; 


IVY TRIBE 83 


they take no nourishment from the plant on which they hang; it only 
supports its weakness by clinging to its stronger neighbour. 

Many timber trees covered with Ivy attain a large size, yet we cannot say 
of the plant that it is not injurious to some of the trees which sustain it. 
There are many cases in which the ivy-band clasps too closely, and both 
prevents the further growth of the tree and injures it by indenting its bark. 
The Rev. W. T. Bree communicated, some years since, to a scientific journal 
some facts relating to the fall of an aged ash, which sufficiently proved the 
power of the Ivy to injure living trees. This tree had, apparently, at some 
period been pollarded early, or lopped at about eighteen feet from the ground ; 
and at that time the trunk had for many years been partially hollow, and in 
a state of decay. It retained its hold in the earth by one large branch only 
of its roots, aided by the stem of the Ivy, which was nearly a foot in diameter, 
and which, springing up directly on the opposite side, clasped the trunk, and 
acted as a prop to keep it in an erect position. “‘ Moreover,” says Mr. Bree, 
“the Ivy towards the very top of the tree formed so large a head of massive 
and persistent foliage as to occasion the wind to have additional power 
against it, and cause the vessel, as it were, to carry too great a press of sail. 
In order to give some idea of the magnificence of this individual specimen 
of Ivy, the finest perhaps, on the whole, out of many extraordinary fine 
ones on the premises, | may mention that the men employed to cut up and 
clear away the windfall calculated that there was at least enough of the 
evergreen to form a good waggon-load or more, which now, alas! served no 
better purpose than to feed the sheep, to whom the shrub affords a favourite 
and wholesome repast.” This tree afforded incontestable proof of the injurious 
effects of the close pressure of the Ivy ; for its stems were tightly laced and 
plaited together, and in some places literally tied in hard knots around the 
smaller branches of its foster-parent. The effects were to be seen in the deep 
weals or indentures imprinted on various parts, not merely of the trunk, but 
of the solid wood of the tree itself; and the foliage had in consequence 
become very scanty, though portions hung still among the sable mass of Ivy 
in light and airy festoons. Mr. Bree adds that he has seen such palpable 
injury produced by Ivy upon timber trees, that even putting aside the a priori 
probability of the case, as well as the testimony of antiquity, he cannot but. 
be greatly surprised that a contrary opinion should ever have been seriously 
entertained. Though the Ivy takes no nutriment from the tree by its peg- 
like supports, yet the root at its base must impoverish the soil by imbibing 
its moisture ; and the dense covering, though affording some winter shelter, 
yet would serve to deprive the tree of some of that light and air which one 
would suppose must be beneficial to it. 

Few have noticed the aspects of nature and vegetation more accurately, 
few have loved them better, or written of them more pleasantly, than 
Bishop Mant. His beautiful volumes on the Months commend themselves 
to all naturalists and botanists by their truth; while the generous and 
tender sentiment, and the tone of elevated piety which breathes throughout, 
must make them interesting to a large class of readers. Referring to the 
subject of our present remarks, Bishop Mant says— 

11—2 


R4 ARALIACEA: 


‘Its verdure trails the Ivy shoot The little birds’ afflicted host ; 
Along the ground from root to root ; The Ivy, fairest plant to seize, 
Or climbing high, with random maze, And promptest, on the neighbouring trees, 
O’er elm, and ash, and alder strays ; O’er bole and branch, with leaves that 
And round each trunk a network weaves shine 
Fantastic, and each bough with leaves All glossy bright, tenacious twine, 
Of countless shapes entwines, and studs And the else naked woodland scene 
With pale green blooms and half-form’d Clothe with a raiment fresh and green, 

buds. Fair is that Ivy twine to see ! 

The Ivy, of our native flowers But as ye love the goodly tree, 
That now among the latest pours O rend away the clasping wreath, — 
Its pale green bloom, and ripes its seed ‘Twill pay the kind support with death. 
Of black and shining balls to feed, Ah, that beneath such semblance fair 
Impervious to the winter’s trost, Should lurk conceal’d such deadly snare |” 


The Ivy was regarded by Pliny as very injurious. He remarks that it 
injures plants wherever it clings to them, that it breaks sepulchres of stone, 
and undermines city walls. 

The Ivy is truly a climbing plant, sending its shoots upwards so long as 
they can find a place to which they can attach themselves. When, however, 
it can find no further support, it then forms tufts of foliage at the summit, 
and becomes a roundish mass of verdure, putting forth neither rooting fibres 
nor creeping stems ; and its very leaves, changing their usual form of lobed 
edges, become either broad or narrow, with almost entire margins. Ivy 
bushes, about four or five feet high, may thus often be seen in the hedge, 
deriving little or no support from the plants near ; and though beautiful for 
their evergreen hue, yet the plant seems to lose all its graceful form under 
these circumstances. 

The small yellowish-green flowers of the Ivy, with their minute calyx-teeth, 
may be seen in clusters on the plant from September to November. The 
leaves, though so well liked by sheep, and fed on by deer, have a bitter 
flavour. Old physicians recommended a decoction made from them as a 
sudorific ; and an infusion of the berries in vinegar was one of the numerous 
medicines recommended to be taken against those severe epidemic diseases 
which have disappeared since cleanliness and ventilation have received more 
attention in great cities. An old writer says—“ The berries are a singular 
remedy to prevent the plague, and also to free them that have got it, by 
drinking the berries thereof, made into powder, for two or three days 
together ; the leaves, applied with rose-water and oil of roses to the temple 
and forehead, easeth the headache, though it be of long continuance.” He 
adds, too, that those who are troubled with the spleen, shall find much ease 
by the continual drinking out of a cup made of Ivy, so as the drink may 
stand some time therein before it be drunk. He gives for this one of those 
reasons which seem to have been more convincing to the men of those genera- 
tions than to modern judgments. “Cato,” he says, “saith that wine put 
into the Ivy cup will soak through it, by reason of the antipathy that is 
between them ; this antipathy being, as he says, very great between wine and 
Ivy, for that one who hath a surfeit by drinking wine will find his speediest 
cure if he drink a draught of the same wine wherein a handful of Ivy leaves 
has been steeped.” The chief worth of this potion, we should imagine, 
would be that the bitterness of the Ivy might serve to give a disgust for 
wine, and prevent a speedy return to the wine-cup. 


IVY TRIBE 85 


Pliny had said, many centuries earlier, that Ivy berries taken before wine 
prevented its intoxicating effects ; and the bacchanalian fillet of ancient times, 
as well as the later use of the Ivy bough as the sign of a tavern, were both 
doubtless founded on some of these notions respecting the effect of the plant. 
Sir Henry Ellis, in his notes to “ Brand’s Antiquities,” brings several passages 
from old writers to prove that, a few centuries since, Ivy hung over a door 
signified that wine was sold within. An allusion to this old custom is 
pleasantly made by Braithwaite, in his ‘“‘England’s Parnassus,” published in 
1600— 


‘*T hang no Ivy out to sell my wine.” 


And in Vaughan’s “Golden Grove” the following passage occurs: “Like as 
an Ivy bush put forth at a vintrie is not the cause of wine, but a signe that 
wine is to be sold there ; so likewise if we see smoke in a chimney, we know 
that fire is there, albeit the smoke is not the cause of the fire.” Coles, in his 
“Introduction to the Knowledge of Plants,” says, “Box and Ivy last long 
green, and therefore vintners make their garlands thereof ; though, perhaps, 
Ivy is the rather used because of the antipathy between it and wine.” The 
Ivy is still used, because of its evergreen nature, in dressing churches and 
houses at Christmas ; and that it has long been so employed is certain from 
an old Christmas carol in the British Museum, in which the respective merits 
of this plant and the holly are compared. 


‘‘Ivy hath berys as black as any slo; 
There come the owle, and ete hem as she goo: 
Holy hath byrdys, a full fayre flok, 
The nightingale, the poppyngy, the gayntyle lavyrok.” 


The ancients generally had so great an esteem for the Ivy, that we 
wonder not at the disappointment of Alexander the Great, because he could 
not make the Ivy of Greece grow near Babylon ; it was consecrated to Apollo ; 
Bacchus had his brows and spears decked with its leaves ; and the people of 
Thrace wore it garlanded about their armour. The Ivy crown was the meed 
of the poet, and wreaths of Ivy were presented by the priests of Greece to 
the newly-married couple—meet emblem as it was of undying love, amid the 
ravages of time and the blasts of adversity. Modern physicians recognise in 
the plant none of those properties which it was believed to possess, but = 
consider the berries as emetic. In the south of Europe and north of Africa, 
an exudation is found on the old trunks of the Ivy, called ivy gum, which is 
found to be stimulant, and is sometimes substituted for Gum Bassora. It is 
used as a remedy for toothache, and contains more resin and lignum than 
gum. Walker says of the resin which exudes from some of our old Ivy stems 
when wounded, that it renders bait attractive to fish. Thin slices of Ivy wood 
are used in filtering liquids, and the roots are employed by leather-cutters 
for sharpening their knives. 

The Ivy is confined to temperate regions, and is more or less common in 
all the countries of Europe. The French call it Lierre ; the Germans, Epheu ; 
and the Dutch have for it the amusingly expressive name of Klimop. The 
Italians call it Edera ; the Spaniards, Hiedra. It is not indigenous to Russia, 
but is called there Bljustsch. Mr. KE. P. Thompson, in his “Life in Russia,” 


86 ARALIACEA.—IVY TRIBE 


speaking of the love of the people of that nation for flowers, says, “They 
decorate their houses with them, and nurse them throughout the winter with 
the greatest solicitude. Ivy is made to serve a pretty and ornamental pur- 
pose in their drawing-rooms. They contrive a little frame of light lattice- 
work on wheels, over which the Ivy is made to twine, forming a pleasant and 
refreshing-looking arbour, under which the lady of the house ensconces her- 
self in a kind of rural retirement.” 

But it is in Germany chiefly that the Ivy is used as a most lovely and 
graceful decoration to dwellings. In England, we consider it enough to let 
its wreaths hang about our walls ; but in Germany, where in its wild state it 
is far less luxuriant than in our country, it is trained also about the walls of 
the interior of the house. Anna Mary Howitt, in her “ Art-Student in 
Munich,” mentions that, from the palace to the cottage, there is scarcely a 
room to be found which does not possess its Ivy-tree, and hardly a window 
to be seen in the street which is not rendered a bower by the festoons of Ivy. 
It trails around the bars of the window, makes a verdant background to 
bouquets of flowers placed in vases or flower-pots, and often wreaths its 
picturesque leaves around a small statue of the Madonna. 

““A very pleasant little paper, I have often thought,” says this writer, 
‘might be written descriptive of the windows in a German street; and the 
mode in which the cherished Ivy was trained would play a conspicuous part 
in it. You may read much of the character of the inmates of the dwelling 
by the Ivy. Sometimes its leaves are dusty, and its growth is ungraceful, 
and its sprays untastefully trained ; sometimes it grows ina gaudy flower-pot, 
or swings from the centre of a window in a hideously-shaped Blumen-lamp— 
flower-lamp, as it is called—a kind of swinging-vessel for plants, very much 
in vogue here; but, as a rule, the Ivy is gracefully, nay, most poetically 
trained ; its Blumen-lamp, if it be planted in one, is often of a graceful rustic 
character, perhaps of red terra-cotta, with delicately moulded foliage of 
yellowish-white clay meandering over it. 

“But it is not alone in windows that you see the Ivy trained. Ivy often 
forms a green and fresh screen across a room, being planted in boxes, and its 
sprays trained over rustic framework. Ivy often casts its pleasant shadows 
over a piano, so that the musician may sit before his instrument as within a 
little bower. Ivy may be seen adorning the shrine which hangs upon the 
wall, or dropping its sprays above the lady’s work-table. 

“The staircase in the house of a great painter here is a complete little 
bit of fairy-land, thanks to his love of Ivy, which festoons the balustrade of 
the polished oak stairs, and strews forth its kindly leaves among the rarer 
beauties of palms and myrtles, which rise grove-like upon the landings! I 
know an apothecary’s shop which is rather like a bit of wild wood, from its 
growth of Ivy, than a shop of physic. I was told the other day of a studio 
here equally sylvan; and I know an old cobbler who could not mend his 
shoes without seeing his Ivy-bush daily before him as he works.” 

The Ivy does not grow wild either in America or Australia, though 
common in some parts of Asia. In the Channel Islands it is an exceedingly 
luxuriant and beautiful plant, the trunks of the trees in Jersey being, almost 
without exception, covered with its wreaths, which not only add to their 


CORNEAZ—CORNEL TRIBE 87 


summer beauty, but soften the sterile aspect of the winter landscape, and 
give to the island a perpetual greenness. Nor is the luxuriance of the plant 
to be seen on the trees only: wayside walls, and even sea-rocks, are enriched 
by its verdure ; and a mile or two out of the town of St. Heliers there are 
cliffs against whose bases the waves dash wildly, yet.whose slopes and sum- 
mits are decked with evergreen masses of leaves, and which seem to a casual 
observer to be some ancient ruins, clad in the mantle which so often hides 
the time-rent wall. 

Sometimes our Ivy wreath twines into the darkness of some chasm in a 
building, becoming paler tinted as it recedes further from the light of day. 
We have seen an Ivy branch so situated, in which all the leaves were of so 
yellow a tint, that the classic reader might have been reminded by it of the 
Hedera pallens—the golden Ivy of Virgil. This plant appears, however, to 
have been the yellow-berried Ivy, the Hedera chrysocarpa, which is probably a 
variety of our common Ivy, with brighter and more yellow leaves. Mr. 
Dodwell, in his “Travels in Greece,’ mentions having found a fragment of a 
vase near Athens, which was ornamented with the Ivy plant in relief, gilt. 
Most classical botanists consider that the Ivy mentioned in the Idylls of 
Theocritus was the Hédera hélix. 'The Giant or Irish Ivy, H. canariensis, is 
by some writers considered a distinct species, but most regard it but as a 
variety. It is a native of Madeira, and not of Ireland. An Ivy of Amboyna 
(H. wmbellifera) is said to furnish a wood scented like rosemary or lavender. 
Miss Strickland relates that when last the coffin of Queen Catherine Parr 
was opened, a wreath of Ivy was found entwining the temples of the royal 
corpse. A berry which had fallen there and taken root at the time of a 
previous exhumation had silently, from day to day, woven itself into this 
green sepulchral coronal, and had wound about the brow where the rich 
golden hair had once clustered, and where noble thoughts had gathered, and 
our first Protestant queen lay thus adorned in her lone resting-place. 


Order XL. CORNEA‘—CORNEL TRIBE. 


Sepals 4, attached to the ovary; petals 4, oblong, broad at the base, 
inserted into the top of the calyx; stamens 4, inserted with the petals ;_ 
ovary 2-celled ; style thread-like ; stigma simple; fruit a berry-like drupe, 
with a 2-celled nut; seeds solitary. This is a small order, consisting chiefly 
of trees and shrubs inhabiting the temperate regions of Europe, Asia, Africa, 
and America. It offers little to our gardens besides some of the Cornels, 
and the Spotted Laurel (4ucuba japdnica), which is a common evergreen plant 
in Japan. The leaves form the chief beauty of this shrub, as the flowers, 
which are green without, and purplish-red within, are small and inconspicuous. 

CORNEL (Cérnus).—Calyx of 4 teeth; petals 4, superior; stamens 4; 
nut of the fruit with 2 cells and 2 seeds. Name from cornu, a horn, from 
its hard wood. 


CoRNEL (Cérnus). 


1. Wild Cornel, or Dogwood (C. sanguinea).—Branches straight ; 
leaves opposite, egg-shaped ; flowers in flat cymes, without involucre. Plant 


88 CORNEA 


perennial. When wandering along the country lanes, very early in the year, 
while the trees of the wood and the bushes of the hedge are yet leafless, the 
twigs and branches of this plant are often very conspicuous. ‘They are almost 
sure to be plentiful if the soil is of chalk or limestone; and we have some- 
times seen the Cornel so abundant in Kent that a wild hedge was, for a mile 
together, half composed of these boughs. Many of the branches were so 
red, so like twigs of coral, that its scientific specific name, and its name of 
Bloody Twig, by which it is still called, and which Pliny termed it, seemed 
appropriate, though unpleasing. It is also commonly called Dogwood, this 
name having been given, it is said, because the berries were not fit even for 
a dog; but it probably had some other origin, since Dog-berry and Hound’s- 
tree were other of its old names, and it was also called Gaten-tree, both by 
old herbalists and poets. The more probable derivation of the name is from 
the dags or sharp-pointed skewers used by butchers, and made from the 
shoots of the Cornel. The name Hound’s-tree is said to have reference to a 
former use of its bark in preparing a wash for mangy dogs. Chaucer calls 
it Gaten-tree. In France the Cornel is called Le Cornowiller ; the Germans 
term it Kornelbaum ; the Dutch, Korneljeboom ; the Italians, Corniola ; and the 
Spaniards, Corniro. The plant is known in Russia as the Kuroslejepnik. 

Our wild Cornel is rather a bush than a tree, though by training it may be 
made to acquire the height of twenty feet. Its foliage is of somewhat dull 
green, the leaves strongly veined, and, in autumn, more or less tinged with 
dark purple or red. The white flowers are produced in June and July, and 
are succeeded by small berries, at first purple, but gradually becoming black. 
These berries are bitter and astringent, and abound in an oil which in several 
parts of the Continent is expressed or extracted by boiling, and used both for 
burning in lamps and for cookery. They yield about a third of their own 
weight in oil; and M. Granier, in a paper addressed some years since to the 
Institute of France, stated that the cost of its extraction did not exceed four 
sous for a pound. The hard wood was once valued for pikes and javelins, 
though the “good and beautiful Cornus” of Virgil is by most writers thought 
to be another species, the Cornelian Cherry (Cérnus mascula). There is some 
degree of astringency in the bark of our wild Dogwood, but it is not equal 
to that of several North American species, which yield some of the best tonic 
medicines used in that country, and scarcely inferior to Peruvian bark. The 
compact wood of our tree is used for the manufacture of small articles, as 
arrows, skewers, toothpicks, and lace-bobbins ; and the larger wood of some 
of the species found in other countries is serviceable for more important pur- 
poses. The burnt ashes of Cornel wood afford a good charcoal for gunpowder. 

Our Cornel is well suited for plantations, thriving well under the dripping 
of trees; and several of the species are very ornamental to gardens and 
shrubberies. The White-fruited Dee-wood (C. alba) is often to be seen there ; 
and the Cornelian Cherry is a well-known and favourite tree. The twigs of 
this latter species have not the usual red tint of the Cornels, but are ash- 
coloured ; and in early spring, when the little starry yellow flowers appear 
on the leafless boughs, the plant is very conspicuous. The fruit is like a 
small plum, but of red colour. Its flavour is harsh till it has hung some time 
on the tree, when it is pleasantly acid. It was once much more valued in the 


CORNEL TRIBE 89 


English garden than now, for ladies of olden times not only made the fruit 
into tarts, but prepared various articles of confectionery with it, and used it 
at dessert. Tusser, who wrote in Queen Mary’s time, calls the fruit Cornet 
plum; and Lord Bacon termed it Cornelian. Gerarde says: “The male 
Cornell-tree groweth in most places in Germanie without manuring; it 
groweth not wilde in Englande, but yet there be sundrie trees of them grow- 
ing in the gardens of such as love rare and daintie plants, whereof I have a 
tree or two in my garden.” The Turks still use these fruits in sherbet. It 
is more likely to be this tree than the Red Cornel of which Virgil says in his 
“Georgics ”— 
‘*The war from stubborn myrtle shafts receives, 

From Cornels jav’lins, and the tougher yew 

Receives the bending figure of a bow.” 

The berries of the Chilian Cornel are a favourite fruit with the natives of 
Chili, who make of them a sort of beverage which they term Theca. It isa 
remarkable fact that the bark of the young twigs of Cornus florida, if rubbed 
upon the teeth, renders them extremely white; and the Indians extract a 
good scarlet dye from the bark of its fibrous roots. Sir Charles Lyell remarks 
of this plant: “ When I arrived in Virginia, in April, I found the woods 
everywhere enlivened by the dazzling white flowers of the Dogwood 
(C. florida), the average height of which somewhat exceeds that of our white- 
thorn ; and when, as often happens, there is a background of cedars or pine, 
the mass of flowers is almost as conspicuous as if a shower of snow had fallen 
upon the boughs. As we sometimes see a pink variety of the wild thorn in 
England, so there occurs here, now and then, though rarely, a pink Dogwood. 
Having never remarked this splendid tree in any English shrubbery or park, 
I had some fine young plants sent home from a nursery to several English 
friends, and among others to Sir William Hooker, at Kew, who was not a 
little diverted at my zeal for the introduction of a tree which had been well 
established for many years in the British Arboretum. But now that I have 
since seen the dwarfed and shrubby representatives of this species in our 
British shrubberies, I am ready to maintain that it is still unknown in our 
island. No Virginian who was not a botanist could ever recognise it in 
England as the same plant as the Dogwood of his native land; yet it is. 
capable of enduring frosts as severe and protracted as are ever experienced 
in the south of England ; and the cause of its flowers not attaining their full 
size in our climate is probably a want of sufficient intensity of light and heat.” 

2. Dwarf Cornel (C. swécica).—Leaves egg-shaped, smooth, sessile, and 
opposite ; flowers few ; involucre of four leaves. Plant perennial. This is a 
very different plant from the Cornel of our shrubbery, or that of our hedges, 
being a herb, and not a shrub or tree. It has subterranean and creeping 
woody stems, from which arise the flowering stems, about six inches in height. 
The flowers are produced in July and August, and are dark purple, with 
yellow stamens. At the base of the umbel are four egg-shaped yellow bracts, 
tinged with purple. The red berries are considered to have tonic properties, 
The Highlanders, who believe that they increase the appetite, give to the 
plant the name of Lwus-a-chrasis, plant of gluttony. The Dwarf Cornel grows 
on most Alpine pastures in Scotland and the north of England, from York- 

11.—12 


90 LORANTHEA® 


shire to Sutherland. Mr. Loudon says it is very difficult to cultivate in a 
garden, though planted in a bed of peat in a shady situation. 


Sub-class III. COROLLIFLOR&. 
Petals united, bearing the stamens. 
Order XLI. LORANTHEA—MISTLETOE TRIBE. 


Stamens and pistils often on different plants ; calyx attached to the ovary, 
with 2 bracts at the base, sometimes almost wanting ; petals 4—8, united at 
the base, expanding in a valve-like manner ; stamens equalling the petals in 
number, and opposite to them; ovary 1-celled ; style 1 or 0; stigma simple ; 
fruit succulent, 1-celled, 1-seeded. This order consists of shrubby plants, 
which are mostly true parasites, their seeds not germinating on the earth, but 
only on some other plant. 

MISTLETOE (V’/scwm).—Stamens and pistils on separate plants. Barren 
flower without calyx ; petals 4, fleshy, united at the base, each bearing an 
anther. Fertile flower, calyx a mere rim ; petals 4, very small ; stigma sessile ; 
berry 1-seeded, crowned by the calyx. Name, the Latin name of the plant. 

MISTLETOE (Viscum). 

Common Mistletoe (/. dlbwm).—Stem branched, repeatedly forked ; 
leaves egg-shaped and lanceolate, blunt ; flowers sessile in the forks of the 
stem. Plant perennial. The Mistletoe-bough, with its pale yellow-green leaves 
and clear white berries, is not an unfrequent object in the winter woods, or 
on the trees of gardens or orchards in the southern counties of England. It 
is found growing on several trees, but is more common on the apple than any 
other, and is very rarely to be found on the oak. Ray mentions the oak, 
hazel, and apple as the trees on which this parasite chiefly fixes; but adds, 
that it may be found also on the pear, hawthorn, common maple, ash, lime, 
elm, and service-tree. Sir William Hooker and Dr. Arnott mention that it 
occurs in Gloucestershire on the common maple (Acer campéstre), and on lime 
trees and locust trees (fobinia pseud-acacia) in Bedfordshire. It also grows on 
cherry laurels in gardens. Mr. Dovaston planted the Mistletoe on twenty- 
three trees ; but most of the young plants died early, particularly when planted 
on the resinous or gum-bearing trees ; and he found it to thrive well only on 
the oak, the apple, and the hawthorn. Some poplar and lime trees, however, 
in Surrey have been completely destroyed by the quantity of Mistletoe which 
grew upon them. Mr. Dovaston remarks that he never saw the plant grow- 
ing well on the oak but once, and that, singular to say, was in Anglesey, in 
the park of Lord Uxbridge ; and it was the more remarkable as hanging 
almost over a very grand Druidical Cromlech. It is usually in the south of 
England a bush of about three feet in length, with a smooth and green stem, 
separating at the joints when dead ; the leaves are thick and leathery ; the 
small yellow flowers, which may be seen from March to May, grow in the 
axils of the upper leaves, and are very thick and succulent. The berries ripen 
in December, and the yellowish-green plant is then very conspicuous, for no 


MISTLETOE TRIBE ol 


verdure is in the woods save that of the holly or fir, or some other evergreen 
tree. 

There is little reason to doubt that our Mistletoe was the plant reverenced 
by the Druids; but as an allied parasitic plant (Loranthus ewropeus) is very 
commonly found in the south of Europe to grow on the oak, and as our 
Mistletoe rarely occurs on that tree, some botanists have supposed the 
Loranthus to be the ancient plant. Those who hold this opinion consider 
that as this latter plant is not now wild in Britain, it was eradicated entirely 
when Druidism was suppressed, in order that every vestige of the wonderful 
superstition might be removed. Professor Burnett, who does not at all agree 
with this theory, remarks: “The Mistletoe, although seldom found on the 
oak, is not exclusively a parasite of other trees, and its rarity on the former 
not improbably led to the preference which the old botanists, as well as the 
Druids, gave to Viscus quercus, the Mistletoe of the oak, over the Viscus 
oayacanthi, the Mistletoe of the hawthorn, when these plants were held in 
much repute in medicine. Hence the very circumstance of a search being 
made for quercine Mistletoe, in an age when these islands were covered with 
forests of oak, is opposed to the idea of the Loranthus being the plant in 
question. Had it then been indigenous here, the oak would have been its 
common if not exclusive habitat ; and this confirms the belief that the Viscum 
was the branch which the Druids went with such solemnity to cut.” To our 
own minds, the fact that the Mistletoe can be planted, and will thrive, on the 
oak, renders it much more likely that it should have been the chosen plant, 
than that in times when forests were so numerous, and the means of access 
to distant parts of the country so difficult, the Druids could have succeeded 
m wholly extirpating the Loranthus, even had they wished to do so, The 
Mistletoe which Mr. Dovaston saw in Anglesey might have grown on the 
oak without artificial help, as it still does in some parts of England. The 
Society of Arts many years since offered a premium for the discovery of the 
Mistletoe on the oak, and had a specimen sent them from an oak in Gloucester- 
shire ; and Mr. Jesse mentions having received a piece of Mistletoe from an 
oak near Godalming, in Surrey. The latter writer remarks that this question 
of the Mistletoe and Loranthus is not one merely of our times. It excited 
attention three hundred years ago ; for Belon, when travelling in Macedonia, 
speaks of a Mistletoe which grew on the oaks there, and observed that there 
was not a single oak-tree on the road between Mount Athos and Tricala on 
which the plant did not grow, though he says it was different from that which 
attaches itself to the apple, pear, and other trees. In all probability it was 
the Loranthus europeus that the traveller saw. 

The connection of the Mistletoe with the most ancient traditions of 
Scandinavia and other European countries must ever invest the plant with 
an interest derived from association. We know, indeed, little of the Druids 
or their worship, though their vast monuments, their cairns and cromlechs, 
are scattered over our country, and are remnants of its worship ere its history 
began. 

It is from Pliny, chiefly, that we gather the little which is known of the 
use made by the Druids of the Mistletoe. This ancient naturalist, in the 
words of his translator, Dr. Philemon Holland, says: ‘“ And forasmuch as we 

12—2 


92 LORANTHEA 


are entred into a discourse touching miselto, I cannot overpasse one strange 
thing thereof used in France. ‘The Druid (for so they call their Divinours, 
Wise Men, and the State of their clergie) esteeme nothing in the world more 
sacred than miselto, and the tree whereon it breedeth, so it be on the oke. Now 
you must take this by the way. These priests or clergiemen chose of purpose 
such groves for their Divine service as stood onely upon okes: nay they 
solemnise no sacrifice, nor perform any sacred ceremonies without branches 
and leaves thereof, so that they may serve well enugh to be named thereupon 
Dryid in Greek, which signifieth as much as the oke priests. Certes to say, 
whatsoever they find growing upon that tree over and besides its own fruite, be 
it Miselto, or any thing else, they esteeme it as a gift sent from Heaven, as a 
sure signe that the God whom they serve giveth them to understand that he 
hath chosen that peculiar tree. And no marveile, for in verie deed Miselto 
is passing geason (scarce), and hard to be found on the oke.” This naturalist 
further describes how the Druids with many devout ceremonies cut down the 
Mistletoe, as Drayton, many years after, relates in his “ Poly-olbion ”:— 
‘‘The fearless British priests, under the aged oak, 

Taking a milk-white bull, unstained with the yoke, 

And with an axe of gold, from that Jove-sacred tree 

The Mistleto cut down.” 
Pliny also adds that the Mistletoe in some sort kills trees. He says, too, 
that the Druids call it All-heal. Full as his own great work is of super- 
stitions connected with plants, yet this old writer closes his account by 
quaintly moralizing on these practices: “So vain and superstitious,” he says, 
“are many nations in the world, doing oftentimes such foolish things as 
these.” 

The Celtic name for the oak was gwid, gue or guy, meaning the shrub, par 
excellence ; and the name by which the Mistletoe is still called in France, Le 
gui, is evidently but a slight alteration of this. Borlase, in his “ Antiquities 
of Cornwall,” says that the Druids gathered the plant with great solemnity 
near the close of the year, saying, ‘‘The new year is at hand—gather the 
Mistletoe ;” and even yet, in some parts of France, the peasant boys go about 
asking largesse, and crying, “A guy Van neuf ;’ while in the upper part of 
Germany, the people, about Christmas time, run from door to door in the 
villages, shouting, “ Guthyl, Guthyl ;? which, he adds, are plainly the remains 
of the Druidical custom. The name by which the plant is known in most parts 
of Germany is Der Mistel. The people of Holstein call it Marentakken, which 
means literally “the branch of the spectres,” from the belief that holding a 
branch of the Mistletoe in the hand would not only enable a man to see 
ghosts, but also to speak to them. It is in Italy called Vischio, the Spaniards 
term it Liga, the Poles Jemiel, and the Russians Omela. 

The Druids, probably, considered the Mistletoe of the oak efficacious in 
all sorts of illness. In many parts of Germany it is yet valued for its healing 
virtues, and supposed to cure wounds ; but it is evidently relied upon rather 
as a charm than from any remedial properties in the plant itself; for the 
peasants believe, too, that if the huntsman carries it in his hand it will 
ensure success. The herbalists in Queen Elizabeth’s time, however, 
enumerated various preparations of Mistletoe both as external and internal 


MISTLETOE TRIBE 93 


remedies; and one of them remarks: “Why that should have most 
virtues that grows upon oaks, I know not, unless because it is rarest and 
hardest to come by; and our college’s opinion is in this contrary to Scrip- 
ture, which saith, ‘God’s tender mercies are over all His works; and so it 
is, let the College of Physicians walk as contrary to Him as they please, and 
that is as contrary as the east to the west. Clusius affirms that which grows 
upon pear-trees to be as prevalent, and gives order, that it should not 
touch the ground after it is gathered ; and also saith, that being hung about 
the neck, it remedies witchcraft.” The herbalists of those days all praise 
its efficacy as a remedy for epilepsy, as did the Italian physician Matthiolus. 
Even as lately as the reign of George I., the plant was extolled for its use in 
this malady ; and Sir George Colbatch, a physician, published, in 1719, a 
“Dissertation concerning Mistletoe,” recommending it as a_ specific in 
epilepsy. The berries are slightly astringent, and a preparation of these 
was recommended in later years; but in earlier times a branch of the 
Mistletoe was merely hung about the neck. At one time it was actually 
called lignum sancte. crucis—wood of the holy cross ; and the praises bestowed 
upon it only serve to prove how, in those days of oral tradition, legends 
gradually adapted themselves to the form of religious belief, till that “more 
sure word of prophecy” had shed its pure light on the heart and under- 
standing, and driven away superstition. 

The Mistletoe is almost the only British truly parasitical plant which 
bears green leaves, though we have several brown and leafless parasites, like 
the Broom-rapes. At no time of its existence is this plant nourished by the 
soil, but derives its sole food from the substance of the tree. Mosses, ferns, 
and lichens, are often, in popular language, termed parasitic; but they are 
nourished entirely by the moisture of the atmosphere, or by the soil lying 
in the crevices of the bark. The insertion of the roots of Mistletoe into the 
very substance of living vegetables, and the mode of germination of the 
plant, have occupied considerable attention among botanists, and are sources 
of great physiological interest. Dutrochet, as well as other men of science, 
made numerous experiments on the plant, with a view to ascertain its exact 
mode of growth. Everyone is aware of the fact, that when a seed is planted 
in the ground, whatever may be its position in the soil, it will send its leaves .. 
and branches upwards, and its roots downwards. Dr. Erasmus Darwin ingeni- 
ously accounted for this on the principle that the leaf-bud was stimulated by air, 
and the roots by moisture, and that, therefore, each elongates itself where it 
is most excited. The experiments made on the Mistletoe confirmed the 
opinion derived from observations on various plants, that the tendency of 
the root is always towards the centre of the object on which it grows, and 
that the young shoots take invariably the opposite direction. Let us plant 
the seed of the Mistletoe wherever we choose, under a bough, or upon it, 
or on either side, the root strikes inwards to the centre of the branch, and 
grows horizontally or laterally, or even shoots upwards, while the stem is 
produced in the opposite direction. 

The Mistletoe is found, when parasitic on the apple, to contain twice as 
much potash and five times as much phosphoric acid as the tree itself; and 
when growing on the oak, its bark is astringent. It has, however, lost its 


94 LORANTHEA —MISTLETOE TRIBE 


old renown as a medicine, and the magical properties mentioned by Virgil 
and other ancient poets are remembered, in our country, at least, but as old 
superstitions. The clear white berries have been made into bird-lime, but 
recent inventions are superseding that use of the plant, and these fruits will, 
probably, soon be left to feed the missel-thrush or “storm-cock,” as he is 
called in country places, whose harsh notes from the apple-tree sometimes 
sound a suitable prelude to the raving of winds and the pelting rains and 
snows which they are thought to predict. The fruits look very beautiful, 
however, when mingled with the red berries and glossy leaves of the holly 
in the winter bouquet. The plant is very properly excluded from the 
boughs which deck the churches at that season ; not, however, for the reason 
which that orthodox old antiquary, Brand, supposes, because of its heathenish 
associations, for these are so little remembered now that they need not inter- 
fere with modern practices, but because it is so often in rustic places 
associated with Christmas merriment, that it might awaken remembrances 
less favourable to thought and devotion. The playful customs beneath the 
Mistletoe-bough in the country-house are of old antiquity in our land, and 
are supposed to have originated in the circumstance that the plant was 
dedicated to the goddess Friga, the Venus of the Saxons. In the feudal 
ages, the bough was gathered with much ceremony on the evening before 
Christmas Day, and hung up in hall or kitchen with loud shouts and 
rejoicing :— 
‘*On Christmas Eve the bells were rung ; 

On Christmas Eve the mass was sung ; 

That only night in all the year 

Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear ; 

The damsel donn’d her kirtle sheen ; 

The hall was dress’d with holly green ; 

Forth to the woods did merry-men go 

To gather in the Mistletoe ; 


Then open’d wide the baron’s hall, 
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all.” 


From Herrick’s “ Hesperides,” we find that this plant, and its companions, 
retained their places as ornaments in the house till Candlemas Day, at which 
time the poet says— 

“Down with the rosemary and bayes, 
Down with the Mistletoe : 
Instead of holly now upraise 
The greener box for show : 
The holly hitherto did sway, 
Let box now domineer ; 
Until the dancing Easter Day, 
Or Easter’s Eve appear.” 


The “crooked yew” was to succeed the ‘“ youthful box,” and the “birch, 
and many flowers beside,” were to yield to the “green rushes and scented 
bents,” till the close of the year, when Mistletoe and holly should resume 
their reign. 

The Mistletoe is pretty general in Europe, and in some other portions of 
the globe attains a larger size than with us, and is more frequent. Thunberg 
says that the parasitic Cape Mistletoe, Viscwm capénse, was disseminated every- 
where on the branches of the trees by means of the birds, which ate plenti- 


CAPRIFOLIACEAiA—WOODBINE TRIBE 95 


fully of its berries ; and Kalm mentions a fibrous Mistletoe (Viscum jilaments- 
sum), found in abundance in Carolina, which he says the inhabitants make 
use of as straw in their beds, and also to adorn their houses. They pack 
brittle goods with it as with straw, and also use it as fodder for cattle. 
Our common Mistletoe, he says, grows on the tupelo, or sweet gum-tree, 
and on the oak and lime, so as to render their summits quite green in the 
winter. Colonel Munday often mentions the Mistletoe of Australia, which, 
he tells us, hung upon the trees, and, like vampires, seemed to exhaust the 
life-blood of the plants on which they fixed their fatal affections. He, too, 
names the gum-tree asa plant on which the parasite grew in great abundance. 
This writer says : “Early in the morning, when the dew is yet on the leaf, a 
peculiarly aromatic odour arises from the gum forest. Sometimes I have 
fancied the scent resembles that of mace, cloves, or pepper, but that of 
camphor is very general. These balmy and spicy exhalations from the 
‘medicinal gum,’ so different from those of other hot climates where the soil 
is richer and the vegetation rankly abundant, must be a healthful ingredient 
of the air we breathe. Depending from some of the larger gum-trees were 
the most enormous Mistletoes I ever saw. One or two of the clusters of 
this parasite were so uniform in shape as to look like a huge chandelier of 
bronze, for that was their colour, hanging plumb down from some slender 
twig.” 


Order XLII. CAPRIFOLIACE A _WOODBINE TRIBE. 


Calyx attached to the ovary, and usually having bracts at its base ; 
corolla regular or irregular, 4—5 cleft ; stamens equal in number to the lobes 
of the corolla, and alternate with them; ovary 3—5 celled ; stigmas 1—3 ; 
fruit usually fleshy, crowned by the calyx. This order contains many 
plants of great beauty, differing much from each other. It consists of shrubs 
or bushes, and herbaceous plants, with opposite leaves. Many very lovely 
species ornament our gardens, and some, like the Honeysuckle, adorn our 
native landscape. Excepting some astringency in the bark, however, the 
plants of this order have no remarkable properties. 

1. ELpER (Sambdcus).—Calyx 5-cleft; corolla wheel-shaped, 5-lobed ; 
stamens 5; stigmas 3, sessile ; berry 3—-4 seeded. Name from the Greek 
sambuke, a musical instrument, in making which its wood is said to have been 
used. 

2. GUELDER Rose (Vibiirnwm).—Calyx , 5-cleft; corolla funnel-shaped, 
5-lobed ; stamens 5; stigmas 3, sessile; berry l-seeded. Name, the Latin 
name of the plant. 

3. HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera).—Calyx small, 5-toothed ; corolla tubular, 
irregularly 5-cleft ; stamens 5; style thread-shaped ; stigma knobbed ; berry 
1—3 celled, with several seeds. Named in honour of the German botanist, 
Adam Lonicer. 

4. Linnaia.—Calyx 5-cleft ; corolla bell-shaped, 5-cleft, regular ; stamens 
4, two long and toothed ; fruit dry, 3-celled, 1 cell only bearing a perfect 
seed. Named after Linnzus. 


~ 


96 CAPRIFOLIACEAL 


1. ELDER (Sambicus). 


1. Common Elder (8. nigra).—Leaves pinnate ; leaflets egg-shaped or 
roundish, and serrated or jagged; stem woody; flowers in cymes. The 
Elder, which is sometimes a bush, sometimes a small tree, is well known to 
all dwellers in the country as being the very first bush in the spring hedge 
to put forth its pale:green, strongly-scented leaves. As early as February 
we may see it sprouting, even when snows are whirling over the landscape. 
Clare mentions it in his description of Nature on ‘the last of March :’— 


‘* Here ‘neath the shelving bank’s retreat, 
The horse-blob swells its golden ball, 
Nor fear the lady-smocks to meet 
The snows that round their bosom fall ; 
Here, by the arch’s ancient wall, 
The antique Elder buds anew ; 
Again the bulrush, sprouting tall, 
The water wrinkles, rippling through.’ 


b) 


In June, the white clusters, tinged with greenish-yellow, form a con- 
spicuous mass in the hedge. The plant grows well on exposed places, and 
even near the sea. It is usually seven or eight feet, but is occasionally 
eighteen or twenty feet in height, the branches having a greyish bark, and 
the main stem being usually rugged. The younger branches are full of pith, 
which the schoolboy pushes out, leaving a hollow pipe fitted for his toys ; 
and the pith has been used in electrical experiments. In olden times the 
cylinders thus formed were used for pipes ; hence the plant had in England 
the old name of Pipe-tree, or Bour-tree, and in Scotland was called Bore-tree. 
Pliny says: “The shepherds are thoroughly persuaded that the Elder-tree, 
growing in a by-place out of the way, and where the crowing of cocks from 
any town cannot be heard, makes more shrill pipes and louder trumpets than 
any other.” The wood of the older branches, which is hard and firm, is used 
for skewers. The autumnal berries are usually purplish-black, but are some- 
times white. They are very mawkish and disagreeable, but the pleasant 
spiced wine made of them is often drunk around the winter fire in country- 
houses, and is considered cordial and wholesome, though unfit to be taken in 
large quantities, as it is very cloying. A syrup, very good for soreness of 
the throat, may also be made of the berries ; and these have been extensively 
used to adulterate port wine, to which they give a rich colour, though, if not 
well regulated, they will impart to it a most unpleasing flavour. A good 
blue dye is also made from these fruits. They are sometimes eaten by 
poultry which stray beneath the boughs, but they are said to be injurious to 
them, and especially to turkeys. It seems that in ancient times the appear- 
ance of this fruit indicated the season for sowing wheat :— 

** With purple fruit when Elder branches bend, 
And their bright hues the hips and cornels lend, 
Ere yet chill hoar-frost comes, or sleety rain, 

Sow with choice wheat the neatly furrow’d plain.” 

The unfolded flower-buds of this tree make, when pickled, one of the 
best substitutes for capers, and though the scent of the blossoms is not 
pleasing, yet a fragrant water is made from them by distillation, and they 


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COMMON ELDER 


migra. 


Ss 


Pl. 100, 


WOODBINE TRIBE 97 


are used to flavour vinegar. [lder-flower wine is said also to be very good, 
and to have.a flavour like Frontignac. The French seem to like the odour 
of these flowers, for they place layers of them in store-rooms between their 
apples, or pack them in baskets with this fruit, to communicate to it an 
agreeable scent. In this country the chief use made of the blossoms is 
in the preparation of a useful and common salve, and in country places they 
are steeped in boiling ~water, and thus afford a cosmetic, which we have 
applied often during our childhood with good success, for removing the 
effects of long exposure to the sun. Few of our native plants have had and 
still retain more renown for their medicinal virtues than the Elder. Indeed, 
as Sir J. E. Smith said, this tree is, as it were, a whole magazine of physic 
to rustic practitioners. Boerhaave is said sometimes to have taken off his 
hat when he passed the tree, so useful did he deem it in the alleviation of 
human maladies. The early shoots, boiled as asparagus, were supposed 
greatly to strengthen the vital powers; the berries and juices of the roots 
were also prescribed, though with some cautions as to their use, on account 
of their powerful properties ; and the distilled water, besides making the 
skin “faire and beautifull,” was thought to cure headache. Gerarde praised 
the Elder highly, as did John Evelyn, who recounted its virtues at some 
length, though he says he cannot commend its scent, which is noxious to the 
air, nor has he a word to say in favour of its beauty. “If,” he says, “the 
medicinal properties of the leaves, bark, berries, etc., were thoroughly 
known, I cannot tell what our countryman could ail for which he might not 
find a remedy from every hedge, either for sickness or wound. The inner 
bark of Elder applied to any burning takes out the fire immediately ; that, 
or in season the buds, boiled in water-gruel for a breakfast, has effected 
wonders in a fever ; and the decoction is admirable to assuage inflammation. 
But an extract may be composed of the berries, which is not only greatly 
efficacious to assist longevity, but is a kind of Catholicon against all infirmi- 
ties whatever; and of the same berries is made an incomparable spirit, 
which, drunk by itself or mingled with wine, is not only an excellent drink, 
but admirable in the dropsy. The ointment made with the young buds and 
leaves in May, with butter, is most sovereign for aches and shrunk sinews, 
and the flowers macerated in vinegar are not only of a grateful relish, but 
good to attenuate and cut raw and gross humours. And less than this could 
I not (with the leave of the charitable physician) to gratify our poor wood- 
man.” It seems never to have occurred to Evelyn, any more than to modern 
believers in “infallible specifics,” that He who gave life and health was not 
likely to give also to fallen man any certain preventative against that Death 
which came upon all men when Adam sinned in Eden. As Milton said— 


‘*Dwelt in herbs and drugs a power 
To avert man’s destined hour ; 
Learn’d Machaon should have known 
Doubtless to avert his own.” 


Other good writers of those days held similar opinions to Evelyn of the 
efficacy of the Elder; yet a line in Lyly’s “Epilogue,” written in Queen 
Elizabeth’s time, would lead to the inference that it was in some disrepute. 

u1.—13 


98 CAPRIFOLIACEA 


“Laurel for a garland, Elder for a disgrace,” says this old writer ; and 
in an elegiac verse of Spenser we find it included with the cypress as an 
emblem of woe :— | 


‘‘Now bringen bitter Elder branches sere.”’ 
Piers Ploughman had, before this, said in his “ Vision ”— 


‘“‘Tmpe on an Elderne, and if thy apple be swete, 
Muchel marvaile me thynketh :” 
“Imp” being the old word for graft. 

The Elder-tree is often said, especially when in blossom, to exhale impure 
air. Its scent is certainly unpleasant, yet we doubt its unwholesomeness, 
having spent many a day beneath its shadow. Pliny says that the leaves 
when boiled are as good as other potherbs ; but we cannot recommend them, 
though they may prove of much use when laid among mole-hills, as they 
appear to drive moles from their haunts in garden or park. Country 
people also gather branches of Elder, and strike with them their flowering 
shrubs or fruit-trees, and say that no insects will afterwards touch them, 
For the same purpose they pour an infusion of the leaves over the plant. 

There is a cultivated variety of the Elder with variegated leaves in 
shrubberies, and others with yellow, green, or white berries. Like our 
common Elder, they grow with singular rapidity, but never arrive at any great 
size. In the northern part of Scotland the berries seldom ripen, though the 
tree thrives well in other respects. The name of Elder seems to be derived 
from the Dutch Holder. The Germans call the plant Hohlunder, and it is 
also known in Holland as the Vlierboom. The Italians call the tree Sambuco ; 
the French, Swreau ; the Spaniards, Sauco ; and the Russians, busia. 

It was a fancy in former times that Judas hanged himself upon an Elder- 
tree, and not only Gerarde and other herbalists, but several poets, as Ben 
Jonson, refer to the idea then prevalent. The well-known purplish-brown 
fungus which grows in clusters on the bark of this tree, the Hirneola auricula- 
jude, is shaped very much like an ear, and is to this day called Jew’s-ear, but 
from the incidental mention of the plant in connection with the traitorous 
disciple, it is probable that the modern name is a corruption of Judas’ Ear. 
Coles, in his work on the “Knowledge of Plants,” says of this fungus, 
‘“‘ Jewes Hare is called in Latin Fungus Sambucinus, and Auricula Jude.” He 
adds, that these mushrooms are said to have grown on the tree ever since the 
catastrophe referred to. This plant was supposed to have wondrous virtues, 
and we find an old remedy for a cough in the following lines :— 

“For a cough take Judas’ Eare 
With the paring of a peare : 
And drinke this without feare 
If you will have remedie.” 

One of the old names for the Elder was Ellan—still extant in this country 
—or Ellhorn. Arnkiel says: “Our forefathers also held the Ellhorn holy, 
wherefore, whosoever need to hew it down (or cut its branches) has first to 
make request, ‘ Lady Ellhorn, give me some of thy wood, and I will give thee 
some of mine when it grows in the forest’—the which with partly bended 
knees, bare head and folded arms was ordinarily done, as I myself have often 


WOODBINE TRIBE 99 


seen and heard in my younger years.” An objection to burning Ellan-wood 
will be found to survive in some parts of this country. 

2. Dwarf Elder, or Danewort (S. ébulus).—Stem herbaceous, furrowed ; 
stipules egg-shaped, serrated ; leaves pinnate ; leaflets serrated ; flowers in 
terminal cymes ; root perennial. This plant has, during June and July, when 
it is in flower, a general resemblance to the Common Elder, and its scent is 
also similar. It is, however, a herb and not a tree, and its angular stem is 
not more than two or three feet high. The blossoms are white, tinged on the 
outside with red, and the anthers are conspicuous by their purple colour. 
The berries are reddish-black, and have violent emetic properties, though 
they were prescribed by old physicians, and praised by herbalists for their 
efficacy in many disorders ; a confection made of the fruit is said to be eaten 
with safety in small quantities, and is sometimes used medicinally. The 
berries afford a violet juice, which gives a good blue dye. They are strewed 
in granaries, that their strong odour may drive mice from the corn; and the 
Silesian farmers commonly place them among their pigs, believing them to 
cure some maladies to which these animals are liable. No cattle will touch 
the foliage, but the leaves, dried and powdered, are said to furnish a good 
material for cleaning metal. The Dwarf Elder is not common, but is found 
occasionally by waysides and in waste places. 

Sir J. EK. Smith thus accounted for the name Danewort :—“ Our ancestors 
evinced a just hatred of their brutal enemies the Danes, in supposing the 
nauseous, foetid, and noxious plant before us to have sprung from their 
blood.” Sir J. D. Hooker says the plant is supposed to have been introduced 
by the Danes. 

2. GUELDER Rose (Vibirnum). 


1. Mealy Guelder Rose, or Wayfaring Tree (V. lantéina).—Leaves 
elliptic, heart-shaped at the base, serrated, downy beneath ; flowers in ter- 
minal cymes ; root perennial. Those who are used to parts of England in which 
chalk and limestone prevail are mostly familiar with this shrub, for it grows 
frequently in the woods and hedges of such dry soils south of Yorkshire. 
One of its common names is Cotton Tree, doubtless from the cottony appear- 
ance of its young shoots. As early as February these attract the attention 
of the country rambler, for they stand up above the branches of the leafless 
thorn and other plants, each surmounted by.a small close button-like tuft of 
grey-green hue, which in time displays the greyish-green strongly-veined 
leaves and the opening buds of the cluster. As the foliage gradually unfolds 
its downy covering gives it the appearance of being covered with dust, and 
by May the large compact clusters of white flowers are fully expanded. 
Though a sober-looking plant, yet it is bright enough in autumn, when 
its bunches of glossy fruits are of a most brilliant scarlet, gradually 
changing as they ripen into purplish-black, and distinguishing themselves 
from all our other wild-wood berries by growing in flat compact clusters, 
as well as by having some fruits in the cluster of glowing scarlet, while 
others are dark as jet. Their flavour is very austere, and they seem to be 
left untouched by the birds, which probably only feed on them when other 
berries are not to be had. They are also astringent in property ; but in 

13—2 


100 CAPRIFOLIACEA 


North America they are, after fermentation, made into a sort of cake by the 
Indians ; and Sir Joseph Hooker, who found the berries of one species abun- 
dant on some parts of the Himalaya, says that they are called Nalum by the 
people there, and are eatable and agreeable. In Switzerland they are used in 
making ink. The bark of the tree is made into bird-lime, but seems to be 
inferior for this purpose to that of the holly. Evelyn says that the inner 
bark is so acrid that it is included by some writers among those plants used 
in raising blisters on the skin, and it is said that a decoction of the leaves 
will dye the hair black. The young shoots are very tough; so much so that 
the gatherer of the wild nosegay must use a knife in severing the twig and 
its flowers. They are in some countries used in making baskets, and for the 
stems of tobacco pipes. In Kent they are often bound around faggots to keep 
them together. William Howitt has a pleasing poem on this shrub, and thus 
addresses it :— 
‘‘ Wayfaring Tree, what ancient claim 
Hast thou to that right pleasant name ? 
Was it that some faint pilgrim came 
Unhopedly to thee, 

In the brown desert’s weary way, 

*Mid toil and thirst’s consuming sway, 

And there, as ’neath thy shade he lay, 

Bless’d the Wayfaring Tree ?” 

Such a name will indeed awaken the imagination to ponder on its origin, 
and to wonder to what weary wanderer the wayside tree proved so welcome 
as to win his regard. 

2. Common Guelder Rose (V/.. épulus).—Leaves broad and somewhat 
heart-shaped, with from three to five pointed and serrated lobes ; flowers in 
large cymes. Plant perennial. This is not an uncommon tree in the English 
or Scottish woodlands, being more ornamental to them by the varied 
autumnal tints of its foliage, and by its glistening berries, than even by its 
summer flowers. The leaves at this season are of red, purple, and green 
hues, and we know of no native berries so beautiful as those of the Guelder 
Rose. They hang in drooping clusters, and are smooth, and clear, and bright 
as rubies. They remain on the boughs long after the foliage has dropped 
from them leaf by leaf, and they often contrast most vividly with the silken 
tufts left by the clematis flower which is winding near them. The shrub 
bears its blossoms in June and July. These are creamy white, and far 
inferior in beauty and snow-like hue to those of the Guelder Rose, which 
adorns the shrubbery, as Cowper says— 

‘Throwing up into the darkest gloom 
Of neighbouring cypress, or more sable yew, 
Her silver globes, light as the foaming surf 
That the wind severs from the broken wave.” 

This, however, is but a cultivated variety of the woodland shrub. The 
flowers in their wild form are not densely crowded, but form a loose flat 
cluster, the inner blossoms being small, bell-shaped, and perfect, and the outer 
ones consisting of a large flat five-lobed corolla, destitute of stamens and 
pistils. As in the Umbelliferse and the Composit large numbers of minute 
flowers are massed together for the sake of rendering them more noticeable 
to bees and other honey and pollen-seeking insects, so in elder and Guelder 


Nm 


MEALY GUELDER ROSE 


Viburnum Jantana 
COMMON GUELDER ROSE 


V. opulms 


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WOODBINE TRIBE 101 


Rose a similar plan is adopted. In Guelder Rose the ordinary flowers, that 
produce honey, stamens, and style, are only one-third of an inch across, but 
for the sake of advertisement the outer row of flowers are enlarged to three 
diameters, though to attain this size they have to give up their organs, and 
become mere banners for the attraction of insect patrons. The perfect 
flowers secrete honey, but are scarcely fragrant. 

The wood of this shrub is used for making skewers, and the berries, 
though not well flavoured in our country, and if crushed emitting a most dis- 
agreeable odour, yet are eaten in Siberia, mingled with honey and flour. 
Gerarde calls this plant the Rose Elder and Gelder Rose. He says the Dutch 
call it Gheldersche Roose. These names probably all came from Guelderland, 
where the plant is said to grow freely. The French call it Boule de neige and 
Viorne, and it is also commonly called by the latter name in Holland. In 
Germany it is termed Schneeball and Schlingbaum, and in Italy and Spain, 
Viburno. The Turks call it Germeschek, and the Russians, Gordowina. Its 
name of Opulus is supposed to have been originally populus. One of our most 
ornamental and frequent garden evergreens, the laurustinus, is the Viburnum 
tinus of the south of Europe, and its branches mingle with the bay and sweet 
myrtle in the rich and fragrant hedges of Italy. 


3. HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera). 


1. Pale Perfoliate Honeysuckle (L. cuprifdlium).—Flowers in sessile 
terminal whorls ; leaves smooth, blunt, upper ones joined in pairs by their 
bases (connate), the rest distinct ; root perennial. This is a very rare Honey- 
suckle, but it is found in some thickets in Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire, 
as well as in woods near Edinburgh. It thrives among the trees and bushes, 
producing in May and June its white or purplish flowers, which are succeeded 
by bright orange-coloured berries. It is not a native species, but one that 
has been introduced from the Continent and naturalized in places. 

2. Common Honeysuckle, or Woodbine (L. periclimenum).—Flowers 
in terminal heads; leaves all distinct, oval, sometimes downy beneath. 
Perennial. It merits well its old name of Woodbine, or Woodbind. Some- 
times, indeed, it binds the tree too closely, as we may see from the indenta- 
tions which it leaves on the bark, and the ridges which rise up between its 
coils. At first, while its branches are tender, the Honeysuckle does no harm 
to the stem or bough which it encircles ; but soon that stem or bough in- 
creases in size, while the twining plant does not lengthen with proportionate 
rapidity ; till at last the coil becomes closer and tighter, and is as Cowper 
described it :— 


‘* As Woodbine weds the plant within her reach, 
Rough elm, or smooth-grain’d ash, or glossy beech, 
In spiral rings ascends the trunk, and lays 
Her golden tassels on the leafy sprays : 

But does a mischief while she lends a grace, 
Slackening its growth by such a strict embrace.” 


There is scarcely any plant more prized by the lover of the country than 
the Honeysuckle, which from June to September is covered with its beauti- 


ful blossoms of red and yellow, sending sweet odours far and wide, and 
forming garlands of grace and beauty. 


102 CAPRIFOLIACEAt 


The Honeysuckle is one of our earliest leafing plants, and we have seen it 
on the last day of February, with reddish-green leaves an inch long, in 
hedges where, except on the pale green elder shoots and an occasional ever- 
green, not another leaf was to be seen. Bishop Mant has alluded to this :— 


‘* And first behold we twine Content to wait for May to spread 
The runners of the lithe Woodbine, Its yellow tubes o’erlaid with red : 
The first of wilding race that weaves Alas! ere May arrives, with grief 
In nature’s loom its downy leaves, "Twill feel, now green, the blacken’d leaf 
And hangs in green festoons, that creep Thrown prematurely forth to bear 
O’er thorny brake or craggy steep ; The nipping frost, the blighting air.” 


At such a season the landscape is looking dreary: the thorns with bronzed 
stems hang dripping with rain-drops ; the black berries of the dark-leayed 
privet glisten near the red twigs of the cornel, while perchance some bough 
of the yellow osier seems like a golden rod, or some catkin of willow or hazel 
gives a little brightness to the scene. Brown leaves with an occasional yellow 
spray hang on the youngling oaks, and the rich crimson-tinted leaf or stem of 
the bramble winds among them. But the Honeysuckle leaf has about it the 
hopes and associations of spring-time. It is the herald of thousands of green 
leaves which shall quiver on the stem and resound to the pattering rain-drops 
of April, and be brightened by April rainbows—its spray is to the foliage 
like the daisy to the flowers and the robin to the birds, the first, and there- 
fore the fairest of its clan. 

The sweet odour of the Honeysuckle, and its frequency in the hedge, has 
endeared the plant to all lovers of Nature; and the poets, whose vocation 
it is to express the thoughts and feelings which have filled the hearts of 
the thousands who could never give them utterance —the poets, from 
Chaucer downwards, have all praised the Honeysuckle. Chaucer tells how 
those that— 

‘* Wore chapelets on hir hede 
Of fresh Wodebind, be such as never were 
To love untrue, in word, ne thought. ne dede ; 
But ay stedfast: ne for plesance ne fere, 
Tho’ that they shoulde hir hertes all to tere, 


Would never flit, but ever were stedfast 
Till that hir lives thei asunder brust.”’ 


The poet drew his image of constant affection doubtless from the clinging 
nature of the Woodbine, and its enduring hold on the tree. Spenser, Michael 
Drayton and Shakspere all call it Woodbine, Honeysuckle, or Caprifoly ; but 
Milton evidently intends this flower by the “twisted Kglantine,” a name, 
however, which all others of the older poets, Chaucer included, had given to 
the Sweet Briar. 

' Besides the blooms which the Honeysuckle bears in summer, it flowers 
again, though far less luxuriantly, in October. The dull red berries are 
clammy, and would not tempt any one by their flavour to pluck them, for 
they are sweetish and insipid, though the berries of the Blue Honeysuckle 
(L. certilea) are a very favourite food with the Kamtschatdales. Dr. Gries- 
bach says: “The pine-forests of Kamtschatka have an underwood of roses 
and honeysuckles. Among the edible fruits the Arctic bramble has the most 
agreeable taste ; the elongated dark blue berries of a Lonicera come next ; 


PALE PERFOLIATE HONEYSUCKLE 3 UPRIGHT FLY HONEYSUCKLE 
Lomicera capritohnm L_ xvlosteum 
2 COMMON HONEYSUCKLE 1 TWO FLOWERED LINNEA 
L. periclymenum Liamzwa borealis 


Hl, 102. 


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nity, 


WOODBINE TRIBE 103 


their taste is not inferior to the finest cherries ; they are prepared with milk, 
or Sarannah, and form a favourite article of food.” The fruits of several 
species are, however, said to be emetic. 

The foliage of our Woodbine is very agreeable to goats, hence our plant 
is sometimes called Goat’s-leaf, or Caprifoly ; and the same allusion is to be 
traced in the specific name of the botanist, and the French name of the 
plant, which is the Chévre-feuille, as well as in some others of those by which 
it is known on the continent of Europe. It is the Caprifoglio, or the Madre- 
salva, of the Italian and Spaniard; the Geisblatt, or the Bauwmlilie, of the 
Germans ; and the Kamperfolie of the Dutch. The genus now called Lonicera 
is a section of the older genus Caprifolium. 

The Honeysuckle in its windings follows the sun from east to west. The 
plant bears pruning well, for, as Professor Martyn observes, those plants 
which in a state of nature cannot ascend without the assistance of others, are 
often liable to lose large branches; they have therefore a proportionate 
vigour of growth adapted to restore accidental injuries. The leaves are very 
hable to the attacks of aphides, and the sphinx hawk-moths with their long 
tongues extract the honey from the flowers. The flowers have, in fact, become 
specially adapted for the visits of butterflies and moths, whose tongues alone 
are sufficiently long to reach the honey, and who alone are able to fertilize 
the ovules. But certain humble-bees, evidently annoyed by the long narrow 
tube, have devised a plan for getting over the difficulty of access to the honey 
—they bite through the tube near the base, and so reach the honey without 
conferring any benefit upon the flower. 

Fragrant essences and waters are made by perfumers of the flowers 
of the Honeysuckle; and the plant is often treated as Wordsworth de- 
scribes :— 

‘* Brought from the woods the Honeysuckle twines, 
Around the porch, and seems in that trim place 
A plant no longer wild.” 

3. Upright Fly Honeysuckle (L. ayléstewm).—Stalks 2-flowered, 
downy ; berries distinct, except at the base ; leaves egg-shaped, entire, downy. 
Plant perennial. This shrub, which is another naturalized alien, occurs in 
woods in some parts of England, as in Hertfordshire and Northumberland, 
Tt has in May and June small twin flowers of a pale yellow colour and: 
without fragrance, and its fruits are small and crimson. 


4. LINNA&A (Linnea). 


1. Two-flowered Linnea (L. boredlis).—Stem trailing ; leaves broadly 
egg-shaped, their margins with rounded notches, leathery and evergreen ; 
flower-stalks long, erect, and 2-flowered ; calyx, flower-stalks, bracts, and 
involucre covered with glandular hairs; root perennial. This elegant plant 
is found in woods in Kast and Mid-Scotland, especially among fir-trees, in the 
counties of Perth, Forfar, Inverness, and Aberdeen ; and in English fir-woods 
as far South as Yorkshire. The delicate thread-like stems are branched, and 
the pink or flesh-coloured bells droop gracefully, expanding in June and July. 
Gronovius gave this plant its name at the request of Linneus, who con- 
sidered that its lowly, depressed condition, and the fact of its having been long 


104 CAPRIFOLIACEAX—_WOODBINE TRIBE 


unnoticed, rendered it a meet emblem of his own early life. In all subsequent 
time the flower has had and will ever possess an interest to the botanist, for 
Carl Linné was a great reformer of Natural History, and the father of 
several of the modern physical sciences. Dr. E. D. Clarke found the Linnea 
very common in almost all the large Northern fir-forests, but he remarks that 
it might be easily overlooked, because it only grows in any abundance in the 
thickest parts of the woods, where its delicate twin-blossoms are almost 
hidden among the moss, through which its slender stems run along to the 
length of nine or ten feet. The flowers are in West Bothnia gathered for 
making some remedy for cold and rheumatism ; and the people of Tronyen 
make an infusion of the plant, which they use for various disorders. Linnzus 
considered that it possessed medicinal properties ; the odour of the blossom 
is much like that of our meadow-sweet (Spirwa ulmdria), and Dr. Clarke 
found it so powerful during night-time as to enable him to discover the plant 
at a considerable distance. He remarks, “There may be other varieties of 
it than those which we noticed, but the representations given of it by Linnzus 
in his ‘ Flora Suecica’ are not correct. No person from these representations 
would be able to comprehend why it received the appellation of Nummu- 
laria, before Gronovius, in honour of Linneus, changed its generic name, its 
leaves being all there represented as ovate and serrated, whereas, some of 
them, sometimes all, are perfectly orbicular, like little pieces of money.” 
The plant is now, in all European countries where it grows, known by the 
name of Linnea ; but the Norwegians call it also Norisle, Norétte, and Nariosle 
grass ; the Danes commonly term it Muarislegries ; and the Swedish peasants 
call it Vindgris. The latter people, however, prize it for its association 
with their great botanist. Mr. E. P. Thompson remarks: ‘To have pro- 
duced one man whose reputation has become the property of the Universe is 
to this day their boast and pride ; and as if to prove what the force of the 
example of one great mind can effect, the love of Botany among the Swedes 
is a ruling passion. The Linnwa boredlis, a little creeping plant of delicious 
fragrance, growing wild in the woods, and named from Linneus, and with 
which they have crowned his bust, is perfectly venerated. In one of my 
rambles in the country some schoolboys, who were following the same path, 
came running to me, stranger as I was, exclaiming, ‘See, sir, I have found 
some of the Linnea boredlis.’” 

Nor is this interesting plant confined to Europe. Sir Charles Lyell, in 
one of his excursions to see the falls of the river Amsonosue, was shown bya 
botanist who accompanied him several places in which the Linnzea grew, and 
it was at that time in fruit. This traveller had seen it in July, 1842, in 
flower in Nova Scotia, but was not prepared to find it extending so much 
farther southward, having first known it as a characteristic of Norway and of 
great Alpine heights in Europe. But he was still more surprised when he 
was assured by his friend that it descends even into the wooded plains of 
New Hampshire, under favour of a long winter and summer fogs, near the 
sea. He adds, ‘‘ What is most singular, between Manchester and Cape Anne, 
in lat. 42° 30’ N., it inhabits the same swamp with Magnolia glauca. The 
Arctic Linnea trailing along the ground, and protected by a magnolia, 
affords a common example of two plants of genera characteristic of very 


RUBIACE—MADDER TRIBE 105 


different latitudes, each on the extreme limits of the Northern and Southern 
range.” 

The Swedish Government granted the Linnea boredlis to Linnzus as a 
crest for his coat of arms ; and letters are yet extant sealed with the seal 
which the botanist had caused to be engraved with this flower. 


Order XLIII. ,RUBIACEAX—MADDER TRIBE. 


Calyx 4 or 6-lobed, or wanting ; corolla 4—6-lobed, wheel-shaped, bell- 
shaped, or tubular, regular, the number of its divisions equal to those of the 
calyx ; stamens 3 to 5, alternate with the lobes of the corolla ; ovary 2-celled ; 
styles 2; stigmas 2; fruit a pericarp, with 2 cells and 2 seeds. This is a 
very important and a very large order, but all the European species are 
comprised in the group called Stellate, or Rubiacee proper. These are 
natives of the northern hemisphere, and many of them are weeds—the most 
valuable plant is the Madder, the roots of the Rubia tinctoria being one of the 
most useful dyes yet known. Several species possess in a greater or less 
degree roots which might be used in dyeing. Some species, like the Squinancy- 
wort, are somewhat astringent ; but it is to the plants of warm climates, 
contained in the order in its more extended form, that we owe so many 
valuable articles of food and medicine. Coffee, Peruvian Bark, Quinine, 
and many other important products, are derived from species of Rubiacez. 

1. Mapper (ubia).—Corolla wheel-shaped or bell-shaped, 5-lobed ; 
stamens 4; fruit, a2-lobed berry. Name from the Latin ruber, red, from the 
red dye afforded by some species. 

2, Brp-sTRAW (Gdlium).—Corolla wheel-shaped, usually 4-lobed ; stamens 
4; fruit dry, 2-lobed, 2-seeded, not crowned by the calyx. Name from the 
Greek gala, milk, some species being used for curdling milk. 

3. WooprRuFF (Aspérula).—Corolla funnel-shaped, 4-lobed ; stamens 4 ; 
fruit dry, 2-lobed, 2-seeded, not crowned with the calyx. Name from asper, 
rough, in allusion to the hispid character of some species. 

4, Frmup MADDER (Sherdrdia).—Corollafunnel-shaped, 4-lobed; stamens 4 ; 
fruit dry, 2-lobed, 2-seeded, crowned by the calyx. Named from James 
Sherard, an English botanist. 


1. MADDER (Lzbia). 


Wild Madder (R. peregrina).—Leaves 4—6 in a whorl, oval, or lanceo- 
late, and glossy, the margins and midrib prickly; corolla wheel-shaped, 
5-cleft; root perennial. This plant grows locally throughout the extreme 
southern counties of England, in stony and sandy thickets, especially near 
the sea; also in Wales and Herefordshire, East and South Ireland, and the 
Channel Islands. It has long straggling stems, with whorls of stiff evergreen 
leaves, very glossy on their upper surface, and bending under at the margins. 
The stems are very rough, and the plant in an early stage much resembles 
the common goose-grass. The small flowers appear from June to August ; 
they grow in panicles, and are of a yellowish or greenish white hue. On one 
or two spots of the sea-cliffs at the east of Dover, the plant forms large 

11.—14 


106 RUBIACEZ 


patches, which in winter: still wear their leaves and fruits, the foliage looking 
as if cut out of thin sheets of copper, and the black berries being about the 
size of currants. In the neighbourhood of Bristol it used to be so abun- 
dant as to take the place of the common goose-grass among the bushes. 
Mr. Peter Inchbald thought that it attains its northern limit at Llandudno 
in North Wales. The larger stems of the plant are round, but when 
young they are square. The root contains some of that colouring matter 
which renders the true Madder so valuable both to dyers and colour-makers. 


2. BEDSTRAW (Gdlium). 
* Root perennial ; flowers yellow. 

1. Yellow Bedstraw ((. vérwm).—Leaves 8 to 12 in a whorl, linear ; 
flowers in dense panicles. During the summer, from June to September, 
many of our dry sunny banks and green sloping pastures, especially near the 
sea, are gay with the golden blooms of this plant, contrasting with the rich 
dark green tint of the slender leaves. Although the flowers are small, yet, 
growing in large and dense clusters, they are very conspicuous, and they have 
a sweet honey-like scent. As this species is by far the most attractive of the 
genus, it probably gained for it the name of Lady’s Bedstraw, which was 
doubtless, in the old time, Our Lady’s Bedstraw. ‘The French call the plant 
Gaillet, and Petit Muquet ; the Germans term it Labkraut ; the Dutch, Walstro ; 
the Italians, Gaglio ; and the Spaniards, Cuaja leche. It was formerly used 
in Cheshire for coagulating the milk for making cheese, and hence had the 
old name of Cheese-rennet. Matthiolus says that it produces a very agree- 
able flavour, and makes the cheese eat sweeter ; but the author of these pages 
considers that the milk in which it has been placed retains, in consequence, 
a very disagreeable taste. A slight and subtle acid exists in the plant, and 
vinegar has been made from its juices. Dr. Lister, writing to the great 
naturalist, John Ray, says that he obtained vinegar from the Yellow Bed- 
straw ; adding, “It is a rare experiment, and is owing, for aught I know, to 
Borrichius : you will see a further account of it in the ‘ Danish Transactions.’ ” 
The whole plant boiled in alum affords a good yellow dye, and the roots» 
yield a red colour, equal or superior to that of the true madder. They have 
long been used for dyeing in the Scottish islands, and were, some years 
since, recommended for general culture by the Committee of the Council of 
Trade; but, though the colour is rich, the roots are too small to render the 
plant a profitable crop. As in the case of the true Madder, and of several 
allied species, the bones of animals are turned red by feeding on the plant. 
This colouring takes place sooner in young than in fully grown animals, and 
is deepest in those whose bones are hardest and thickest. This property of 
the madder and its allies is the more remarkable, because it is not shared by 
other plants which, like the woad and saffron, are used in dyeing. It was 
first noted by John Belchier, an English surgeon, who, having dined with a 
cotton-printer, observed that the bones of some pork on the table were of a 
bright red hue. On expressing his surprise, his host explained to him that 
this was in consequence of the swine having been fed on bran and water in 
which cloth had been previously boiled, and which was coloured by the 


WILD MADDER 
Ruta peregrina 
YELLOW BEDSTRAW 


Gaburs verum 


CROSS-WORT B. 


C. ermciatom 


Pil, 103, 


SMOOTH HEATH B. 
G. saxatile 
LEAST MOUNTAIN B 


G. pusillum 


ROUGH MARSH B 


G, nligmosum 


a 


Pin ake 
i iw \ 


MADDER TRIBE 107 


Ribia tinctéria. Mr. Belchier, after making various experiments on the 
subject, communicated the results to the Royal Society. Singular prepara- 
tions were afterwards made, by which animals were fed alternately on 
madder and on their customary food: by these means the constant deposition 
of osseous matter, and its constant removal, were clearly marked by the 
white or red colours, while the entire withdrawal of the plant for some days 
caused the total disappearance of the red hue in the bones of the animals. 
The French formerly considered the Yellow Bedstraw of much medicinal 
efficacy in hysteria and epilepsy. The plant is common throughout Europe, 
enlivening everywhere the fields of Siberia, as it does ours, with its bright 
blossoms. 

It is thought that the name of Bedstraw is derived from the old English 
word, to straw or strow, and that these plants were used for strewing over 
floors. ‘Thus we find in churchwardens’ accounts of former days various 
items for “strawenge of yerbes ;’ but a more direct origin is found in the 
fact, that straw, as well as herbs, was formerly used for beds, and that some 
imaginative monk or nun thought that this plant, from its beauty and 
sweetness, should form “Our Lady’s Bedstraw.” The old historian 
Fitz-Stephen, who was secretary to Thomas a Becket, tells of one who held 
a manor in Aylesbury, on condition of finding litter for the king’s bed; 
namely, grass or herb in summer, and straw in winter, three times in the 
year, on the king’s visit to Aylesbury. In as late a period as the reign of 
Henry VIIL, the beds were filled with straw, even the king’s bed being of 
that material. 

2. Cross-wort Bedstraw (4G. crucidétum).—Leaves 4 in a whorl, egg- 
shaped, hairy ; flowers in small axillary cymes ; fruit-stalks bending down- 
wards. ‘This species is often called Mugweed, and is a common plant of our 
hedge-banks and thickets, its hairy or downy stem being about two feet in 
height. Its dull yellow blossoms appear in May and June, and form little 
clusters of about eight flowers, which are seated in the axils of the leaves, 
the upper blossoms having pistils only, the lower ones only stamens. It is 
well distinguished by having its leaves arranged four together in the form 
of a cross. It was formerly considered, when bruised, a good remedy for 
wounds. 


* * Flowers white ; root perennial. 


3. Smooth Heath Bedstraw (G4. saxdtile).—Leaves about 6 in a whorl, 
inversely egg-shaped, pointed ; stem much branched, smooth, prostrate below. 
This species, as its name imports, is to be found on open sunny places, as 
heaths, hill-sides, and mountains, and it is a common plant. Its stem is 
much branched, and its numerous and dense panicles of flowers, often from 
June to August, whiten the grassy spots by their profusion. The greater 
number of the white-flowered species have their blossoms in few and 
scattered panicles, so as to make no great show; but this species, with its 
milk-white clusters, is, like the Yellow Bedstraw, rendered ornamental by 
their numbers. The edges of the leaves are sometimes fringed by a few 
prickles, pointing forwards. It is usually a low-growing plant, but in moist 
places is sometimes a foot high. It turns black in drying. 

14—2 


108 RUBIACEZ# 


4. Least Mountain Bedstraw (G. pusillum).—Leaves about 8 in 
a whorl, narrow, lanceolate, and hair-pointed, lower ones somewhat hairy ; 
panicles terminal, few-flowered ; fruit slightly granulated. This species is 
very similar to the last, and chiefly distinguished from it by its more narrow, 
stiff pointed leaves and its more erect habit. It is, however, a rare plant, 
occurring on dry soils in several of the more western parts of England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland. It is not found in Wales, neither in the west of Scotland 
nor in the east of England. It flowers in July and August. Also known 
as G. sylvestre. 

5. Rough Marsh Bedstraw (G4. wligindsum).—Leaves 6—8 in a whorl, 
narrow, tapering at both ends, bristle-pointed, their edges as well as the 
angles of the stem rough with prickles, which point backwards. This species 
is very frequent by the sides of rivers and on wet meadows. It has much 
similarity to the following kind, and both plants are often found growing 
together. It is chiefly distinguished from it by its narrow, sharply-pointed 
leaves. Its slender and brittle stem is rarely more than a foot high, and its 
panicles of few flowers appear in July and August. It does not turn black 
in drying. It is to this or a nearly allied species that Charlotte Smith refers, 
when describing the course of some water nymph down the quiet river. 

‘*O’er her light skiff, of woven bulrush made, 
The water-lily lends a polish’d shade ; 
White Galium there, in pale and silver hue, 
And epilobium on the bank that grew, 
Form her soft couch ; and as the sylphs divide 
With pliant arms the still increasing tide, 
A thousand leaves along the stream unfold ; 
Amidst its waving swords, in flaming gold, 
The iris towers ; and here the arrowhead, 
And water-crowfoot, more profusely spread, 
Spangle the quiet current ; higher there, 
As conscious of her claims, in beauty rare, 


Her rosy umbels rears the flow’ring rush ; 
While with reflected charms the waters blush.” 


6. White Water Bedstraw ((7. palistre). — Leaves from 4 to 6 
in a whorl, oblong, blunt, tapering at the base; stem weak, straggling, 
branched, more or less rough. This common plant flowers in July and 
August, bearing its blossoms in loose panicles. It is usually larger than the 
foregoing species, with which alone it could be confounded, but it varies 
greatly in different soils and circumstances. In one variety the stem and 
leaves are almost smooth; and in a second, the nerves at the back and 
margins of the leaves, and the angles of the stem, are most distinctly beset 
with prickles, which chiefly bend downwards. The latter form is the 
G. witheringit of some botanists. 

7. Upright Bedstraw (4. eréctwm).—Leaves from 6 to 8 in a whorl, 
lanceolate, and tipped with a spine, the margins having prickles which 
point forwards ; stem weak, segments of the corolla somewhat pointed. This 
is a rare species, flowering in June, and found in some hedges of England 
and Scotland. It has in some cases narrower leaves, when it is described by 
some botanists as G. diffusum. In other conditions it has been termed 
G. aristatum, and G. elatum. It appears to be really a sub-species of 
G. mollugo. 


WHITE WATER BED STRAW 


Gahom palostre 


UPRIGHT B 
G erectum . 
GREAT HEDGE B 


G mollngo 


SMOOTH FRUITED 


CROSS LEAVED B 


WALL B 


G. boreale 


G. parisiense 


WARTY FRUITED B 


B 


G. spurum 


G. saccharatmm 


MADDER TRIBE 109 


8. Great Hedge Bedstraw (G. molligo).—Leaves 8 in a whorl, 
oblong, tapering at both ends, having a bristly point and roughish margins. 
This species, though not frequent in Scotland, is among the common flowers 
of England, bearing its blossoms in loose spreading panicles, and having long, 
soft slender stems three or four feet in length. It presents some resemblance 
to the goose-grass ; its prickles, however, point forwards, while those of that 
plant point backwards. A variety has been found by Dr. Bromfield in the 
Isle of Wight, with greenish flowers. The plant was, some years since, 
highly eulogized by M. Jourdain, the Director of the Hospital at Tain in 
Dauphiny, as a valuable remedy for epilepsy, and marvellous cases have been 
related of its efficacy, though very little reliance is placed by other medical 
men on its powers. The roots afford a good red dye, and colour the bones 
of birds. 

9. Cross-leaved Bedstraw (G. boredle).— Leaves 4 in a whorl, 
lanceolate, 3-nerved, smooth; stems erect. This species, which is not 
uncommon on moist rocky places, is easily distinguished by its four leaves 
placed crosswise, and its fruit rough with hooked bristles. It has straggling 
stems about eighteen inches long, with many leafy branches, and it bears in 
June and July its compact terminal panicles of flowers. This plant is, by 
the North American Indians, termed Sawayan, and the roots are used to dye 
the porcupine quills with which they embroider the boxes, baskets, and 
other ornamented articles made of birch-bark, so often brought to this 
country. The roots, after being carefully washed, are boiled gently, and a 
quantity of the juice of the mooseberry, cranberry, or strawberry, is added. 
The quills are placed in the liquor before it becomes cold, and in most 
cases quickly acquire a rich scarlet tint, though occasionally the dye fails, 
and only a dingy brown colour is produced. This is probably the conse- 
quence of too much acid having been mingled with the dye. The Crees use 
several plants in tinting the quills, taking indiscriminately either this or an 
allied species for the scarlet hue, and giving the black colour with elder bark, 
the yellow with a juice obtained from the Dutch myrtle, and various other 
tints by means of lichens which abound on the barren rocks. Both the 
quills and the skins which the Indians prepare for their dresses are also dyed 
yellow with a colour derived from a species of hellebore, growing commonly * 
in the woods throughout Canada, and called by the French Z%ssavoyaune 
jaune. ‘The Cross-leaved Bedstraw must not be sought south of a line drawn 
from Brecon to York. North of that and in Ireland it may be looked for 
creeping among moist elevated rocks. 


** * Roots annual ; flowers white or greenish. 


10. Wall Bedstraw (G. parisiénse).— Leaves about 6 in a whorl, 
lanceolate, bristle-pointed, prickles on the margins pointing forwards ; flower- 
stalks axillary ; stem slender, rough, with prickles bending backwards ; fruit 
in one variety bristly, in another smooth. This is a plant inhabiting dry 
sandy soils and walls, and flowering in June and July. It is found, though 
rarely, in Kent, and other parts of the east and south-east of England. It is 
also known as G. anglicum. 

1l. Warty-fruited Bedstraw (G. sacchardtuwm).—Leaves 6 in a whorl, 


‘110 RUBIACEA 


lanceolate, the prickles on their margins pointing forward ; flower-stalks 
3-flowered ; fruit large, rough, with raised tubercles. The stems are trail- 
ing, and the flowers, which expand from June to August, are small and of a 
pale yellow colour. It cannot be considered a native, for its addition to the 
list of British plants rests on the unsupported testimony of G. Don. 

12. Smooth-fruited Corn Bedstraw (G. spiirium).—Leaves from 6 
to 8 in a whorl, narrowly lanceolate, with prickles on the margin, and 
mid-rib pointing backwards ; flower-stalks axillary, with from 3 to 9 
flowers ; fruit smooth or rough, on straight, forked stalks. This rare species 
is found only in cultivated fields, and has probably been introduced with 
flax-seed. It has, in its rough-fruited variety, been found in Essex and 
Cambridgeshire, and closely resembles the goose-grass (G. aparine), but is 
distinguished by its more numerous green flowers, its floral leaves being 
solitary or in pairs, and its much smaller fruit. 

13. Rough-fruited Corn Bedstraw (G4. tricérne).—Leaves from 6 
to 8 in a whorl, narrow, lanceolate, with marginal prickles turning back- 
wards; stem with prickles turning backwards; flower-stalks axillary, 
3-flowered ; flowers small; fruit large and covered with small granulations. 
This species flowers from June to August, on dry chalky fields, from Cumber- 
land southward. 

14. Goose-grass or Cleavers (G. aparine).—Leaves from 6 to 8 
in a whorl, narrowly lanceolate, their margins as well as the angles of the 
stem rough, with prickles pointing backwards; flower-stalks axillary, about 
3-flowered ; fruit covered with short hooked bristles. Those who know any- 
thing about wild flowers will hardly need a description of this common 
plant; for there is scarcely a hedge-bank on which its stems and starry 
leaves may not be seen straggling among the grass, or climbing by the help 
of the bushes, and it often intrudes itself into the garden. Leaves, stems, 
and globular fruits are all bristly, and the latter often cling to the clothing 
of the country rambler, and so get distributed far and wide, as they do more 
naturally by sticking to the fur or feathers of the birds and mammals that 
haunt the hedgerow. Several of our popular names indicate this habit of 
the plant; thus it is called Cleavers, Scratchweed, and Catchweed. The 
Greeks termed it Philanthrépon, fancifully attributing its clinging habit to a 
love of mankind, though, of course, the cause is purely mechanical. Dioscorides 
tells us that it was used in his time as a kind of filter for straining milk, and 
Linnzus says it is commonly so used in Sweden. In our own country places 
it is occasionally thus employed, when a sieve is not at hand, and answers 
the purpose exceedingly well, by the roughness of its leaves and stalks. In 
former days, when country dwellings were less plentifully supplied with 
household conveniences, this and other rustic contrivances were probably in 
much more frequent use than in modern times, and the direction of the poet 
was then more applicable than now : 


‘¢ For first an osier colender provide 
Of twigs thick wrought: such toiling peasants twine, 
When through streight passages they strein their wine.” 
This plant is said to have its name of Goose-grass from the fondness of 
that bird for its herbage. Its expressed juice has long been justly praised 


a ROUGH FRUITED CORN BEDSTRAW 4 SWEET WOODRUFT 
Gahum tricorne Asperuila odorata 
GOOSE GRASS 5 SMALL W 
G. eparine A. cynanchica 
BLUE FIELD MADDER 6 FIELD W 
Sherardia arvensis A. arvensis 


Bt. 106; 


tie ; ing ¥ 
7 Dri 


MADDER TRIBE 111 


as a purifier of the blood. The plant is cut in small pieces, also, and boiled 
in broth as a spring drink, or it is pounded in a mortar, and the juice taken 
while fresh. Its outward application has, even in modern days, been advised 
by eminent surgeons, and its use in this form was once very general ; and, 
besides being prescribed as a remedy for those “bitten by serpents,” it was 
deemed a certain cure for wounds. An old writer tells us that it was 
“familiarly taken,” in his day, “as a broth, to keep them lank and lean that 
were apt to grow fat ;” though what particular advantage either to health or 
beauty was gained by being lank and lean our good herbalist does not specify. 
The interior of the seeds is somewhat horny, and they form, when roasted, 
a good substitute for coffee. From some slightly stimulating powers which 
the beverage made from them is thought to possess, it has been suggested 
that they contain the principle of caffeine, which renders the Arabian berry 
so refreshing in its influences. Our Goose-grass is found throughout Europe 
and North America, as well as in the north of Asia. A tuberous-rooted 
species of Galium (G4. tuberdésum) is cultivated in China as a dietetic vegetable, 
and the tubers, either ground or cooked whole, are described as forming a 
wholesome and agreeable dish. 


3. WoOoDRUFF (Aspérula). 


1. Sweet Woodruff (4. odordta).—Leaves from 6 to 8 in a whorl, 
lanceolate ; fruit bristly ; root perennial. Plentiful as this fragrant plant is 
in many of our woods, yet in others it is altogether unknown. We have 
seen it in Kent and Surrey, covering large extents of wooded land, its bright 
green stems surrounded by coronals of richly verdant leaves, and surmounted 
in May and June by its beautiful little clusters of blossoms. The small 
flowers, white, or slightly tinged with pink, seem firm and compact as if cut 
out of wax. The leaves are deliciously fragrant with the odour of newly- 
mown hay, but this is scarcely perceptible while the plant is growing. When 
gathered, the warmth of the hand soon brings forth the aroma, and the dried 
plant will retain its odour for many years. The name of Woodruff, or, as it 
was formerly spelt, Wooderoofe, or Woodrowe, is a corruption of Woodrowel, 
and was given, according to Turner, because ‘its leaves represent certain 
rowelles of spoorres.” One of the old modes of spelling the word is still 
commemorated in the country rhyme yet handed down from generation to 
generation by cottage children :— 

‘* Double U double O double D E, 
R O double U double F E.” 

Gerarde observes of this plant, ‘“‘ Woodrooffe hath manie square stalkes 
full of joynts, and at everie knot or joynt, seven or eight long narrow leaves, 
set round about like a starre, or the rowelle of a spurre. The flowers growe 
at the top of the stemmes, of a white colour, and a very sweete smell, as is 
the rest of the herbe, which being made up into garlandes and bundles, 
hanging up in houses in the heat of summer, doth very well attemper the 
aire, coole and make freshe the place, to the delight and comfort of such as 
are therein. Woodroofte is named of divers Aspergula odorata, of others 
Cordialis and Stellaria ; in English, Wooderooffe, Woodrowe, and Woodrowell.. 


112 RUBIACEA—MADDER TRIBE 


It is reported to be put into wine to make a man merrie, and to be good for 
the heart and liver.” We know, too, from churchwardens’ accounts of the 
reign of Edward IV., that “Rose garlandis and Woodrowe garlandis” were 
hung in churches. 

The Woodruff generally grows very closely around the roots of trees, and 
on a soil so completely formed of vegetable mould, that, as some writer has 
remarked, it might almost be thought a parasite. The foliage imparts a very 
pleasant flavour to wine, but in our days and country it is seldom mingled 
with it, except in villages. It is often, however, laid in drawers among linen 
or clothes, to which it not only imparts a sweet odour, but is thought to serve 
as a preservative from moth. Ladies often use it for the contents of 
ornamental scent-bags. In Germany the plant is much employed in flavour- 
ing liqueurs. The Germans also gather it in May for the purpose of making 
a delicious beverage, which they call May-drink. A gentleman, known to 
the author, was travelling with a friend in Germany, when, stopping at a 
hotel, this May-drink was brought as a refreshment to the travellers They 
inquired of what the pleasant beverage was composed, and were informed 
that sugar, Rhine wine, and Sweet Woodruff, were the ingredients. Next 
morning, at breakfast, the gentleman missed his companion, and was, some 
hours after, amused to see him returning to the hotel, accompanied by a 
peasant laden with a basket of the roots of the Sweet Woodruff, which he 
had patriotically determined to transplant to the woods of his native land, 
that Englishmen might henceforth enjoy the delicious May-drink. It was 
not without some disappointment that he heard from his friend that his early 
morning labour was wasted, and that he had only need to walk into some 
woods within a mile of his own home, to find the plant as plentiful as in 
those of Germany. 

The Sweet Woodruff is eaten by cattle and horses. It contains an acid 
principle, with much fixed alkaline salt ; and its odour, like the similar one 
of the Meadow-grass (Anthoudinthum odordtum), is owing to the benzoic acid 
which it contains. Its power of “making the heart merrie,” which our 
fathers ascribed to it, must, if not altogether imaginary, be owing to the 
slightly exhilarating principle of theine, to which we owe the refreshing 
powers of tea, that, as Cowper says, “cheers, but not inebriates,” and a 
smaller portion of which is possessed by the foliage of the Woodruff. 

2. Small Woodruff, or Squinancy-wort (4. cyndnchica).—Leaves 
very slender, 4 in a whorl, uppermost whorls very unequal ; fruit granular 
and rough; root perennial. The general appearance of this plant differs 
very much from that of the fragrant species. Its leaves are smaller and 
narrower, and its dense clusters of white flowers, with pink exteriors, are 
much handsomer. It grows on warm sunny banks, on open downs, or chalk 
cliffs, and is a common plant on limestone soils ; but it is far more local than 
A. odorata, and it is not found north of Westmoreland and Yorkshire. It 
occurs also in the south and west of Ireland. The stems rarely exceed four 
inches in height, and the flowers expand in June and July. The odour of 
this herb is truly disagreeable, but its large patches, when in flower, are very 
ornamental to the short pasture grasses among which it grows. Its specific 
name, taken from the Greek, and signifying to choke, as well as its English 


VALERIANEAW—VALERIAN TRIBE 113 


name of Quinsey-wort or Quinancy-wort, refers to its ancient uses in disorders 
of the throat. 

3. Field Woodruff (4. arvénsis).—Leaves from 6 to 10 in a whorl, 
very slender, lanceolate, and blunt ; flowers in a terminal cluster, surrounded 
by long bracts, fringed with delicate hairs; stem erect, square. This plant 
was probably never truly wild in this country, though Gerarde says that in 
his time it grew in “many places of Essex and divers other parts, in sandie 
ground.” It still occurs occasionally in corn-fields, but no doubt introduced 
with the farmer’s seeds. The flowers are bright blue, expanding in June ; 
the fruit large and smooth. 


4, SHERARDIA, OR FreELD MADDER (Sherdrdia). 


Blue Sherardia (S. arvénsis).—Leaves about 6 in a whorl, lanceolate, 
acute, their margins rough ; flowers in small umbels, seated amid the terminal 
leaves ; stems branching and spreading ; root annual. Many persons, while 
wandering in the country, pass by this small plant; but the lover of wild 
flowers regards with interest its pretty little cluster of pale lilac blossoms ; 
and the botanist looks with favour on a plant destined to commemorate one 
of our greatest botanical collectors. The valuable Herbarium of James 
Sherard is still preserved at Oxford ; while the noble garden of Sherard, at 
Eltham, in Kent, has been immortalized by having given rise to the “ Hortus 
Elthamensis” of Dillenius. The plant is so small, that one would fain have 
commemorated a good botanist by a finer flower; but that is unimportant, 
seeing that the work of Dillenius is an enduring monument to his fame. 
The plant abounds in the ridges of corn-fields, and on dry banks, especially 
where the soil is of gravel, flowering from April to October. 


Order XLIV. VALERIANE—VALERIAN TRIBE. 


Calyx superior, finally becoming a border or pappus to the fruit ; corolla 
tubular, 3—6-lobed, sometimes irregular and spurred at the base; stamens 
from 1 to 5, inserted into the tube of the corolla; ovary with from 1 to 3 
cells ; fruit dry, crowned with the calyx, not bursting, 1-seeded, two of the 
cells bemg empty. This order consists of herbaceous plants with opposite 
leaves, without stipules, having, in most cases, a powerful odour, and a bitter 
and tonic principle. Many plants of other countries contained in this order 
possess important properties. The true Spikenard of the ancients is a plant 
of this family. They are mostly natives of temperate climates, often growing 
on mountains. Though the species are rare in Africa and North America, 
they abound in South America, the north of India, and Europe. 

1. Spur VALERIAN (Centrdnthus).—Corolla 5-cleft, spurred at the base , 
stamen 1; fruit crowned with a feathery pappus. Named from kentron, a 
spur, and anthos, a flower. 

2. VALERIAN (Valeridna).—Corolla 5-cleft, bulged at the base ; stamens 3 ; 
fruit crowned with a pappus. Name from the Latin valere, to heal, from its 
medicinal properties. 

3. CORN-SALAD (/édia).—Corolla 5-cleft, bulged at the base; stamens 
2-—8 ; fruit crowned with the calyx. Name of uncertain origin. 

11.—15 


114 VALERIANE 


1. SpuR VALERIAN (Centrdnthus). 


Red Spur Valerian (C0. riber).—Leaves egg-shaped, pointed ; spur 
much shorter than the tube of the corolla ; root perennial. This plant, with 
its large handsome clusters, varying from delicate pink to rich deep red, is a 
very common garden flower. It is not a truly British species, but is 
naturalized in many chalk-pits and limestone quarries ; and it often grows on 
old walls, where it is the outcast of the flower-bed, or sometimes on castle- 
steep or church-tower. The gardener calls it by various familiar names, as 
Pretty Betty, but of old it was called Setewall. From several sources, we 
know it was a plant of some renown. ‘The old writers seem to include the 
great wild Valerian in the same name, but as the red species grows on walls, 
it originally, doubtless, belonged to this. 

The stem of this species is from one to two feet high, and its flowers 
appear from April to September, a variety with white blossoms sometimes 
occurring. The practical effect of the spur is to increase the length of the 
long flower tube and render the honey accessible only to insects with long 
tongues. The leaves are smooth, and covered with a sea-green powder. 
The French term the plant Valeriana, the Germans call it Baldrian, and the 
Russians Balderian. Its native country is the south of Europe, and in Sicily 
the leaves are commonly eaten as a salad; the seeds of some species were 
formerly used in embalming the dead. 

It is interesting to note the simple method by which cross-fertilization is 
assured, provided that insect visits are made to the flowers. The solitary 
stamen first stands erectly at the mouth of the flower and sheds its pollen ; 
afterwards the style rises to the same position and matures its stigmas, so 
that a bee that has visited an older flower and got dusted with pollen is 
likely to bring the same part of its body in contact with the stigma and so 
fertilize it. 

2. VALERIAN (Valeridna). 


1. Small Marsh Valerian (/”. didica).—Stamens and pistils on different 
plants ; root-leaves egg-shaped, stalked ; stem-leaves pinnatifid, with a large 
terminal lobe, serrated ; root perennial. This small species is common in 
moist meadows, its erect and unbranched stem being about a foot high, and 
surmounted, in May, by its corymb of pale pink flowers, of which the stamen- 
bearing corollas are larger than the others. 

There are really four forms of flowers to be found on as many plants : 
1, the largest of all, contains stamens but no pistil; 2, the next largest, 
contains stamens and a rudimentary pistil ; 3, smaller, contains a fully 
developed pistil, but the anthers are only rudimentary and produce no pollen ; 
4, the smallest of all, contains a pistil but no anthers. By this arrangement 
cross-fertilization is certain, through the agency of insects that seek the 
honey with which the flowers are provided. The presence of the rudimentary 
organs points to the probability that the flowers formerly contained both 
stamens and pistil, as in /’. officinalis. 

2. Great Wild Valerian (J. officindlis).—Leaves all pinnatifid ; leaflets 
lanceolate, nearly uniform ; root with short subterranean shoots. A form of 


= 


$; | | ee = OP __ a z 
B, a CW =z ‘ an v5 


VALERIAN 


officinalis 


GREAT WILD 


RED SPUDUR-VALERIAN 


u 


Vv 


Centranthus ruber 


IAN 


LEAVED VALER 


HEART 


4 


VALERIAN 


SMALL MARSH 


1ca 


Valeriana dic 


Pl. 106. 


VALERIAN TRIBE 115 


this plant, having from six to ten pairs of leaflets, either entire or toothed 
at the margins, and with spreading leaf-stalks, is described by some writers 
as V, mikani ; while another form of the plant, having the lower and middle 
leaf-stalks erect and closely pressed, and its toothed and serrated leaves of 
four or five pairs of leaflets, has been termed /”. sambucifolia. The former is 
more generally met, the latter being very local. It is pleasant, during June, 
to wander by the river bank, watching the gauzy-winged insects as they 
dance in the sunbeams, and the swallows which skim over the pool, or the 
scarcely less graceful water-wagtails hovering above the water. Few spots of 
our landscape are at this season more attractive to the lover of Nature than 
such a one as Chaucer seems to have loved so well :— 
‘* A river in a greene mede, 
There as sweetnesse evirmore inough is, 
With flowre white and blewe, yellowe and rede.” 
And few of the flowers gathering there among grass and sedge are more 
conspicuous than the tall Valerian, which grows on the river’s brink, or just 
within the water. It is commonly three feet high, and sometimes, when the 
river runs over a chalky soil, it is four, or even five feet in height. In such 
cases, as the eye follows the windings of the waters, we may see the plant 
giving its hue to the margin by its delicately-tinted clusters of pale pink, 
becoming almost white when fully developed, and mingling, perhaps, with 
other specimens from which the flowers have passed away, leaving behind the 
clusters of feathery down so soon to be widely scattered by autumnal winds. 
To many of us, the powerful scent of the Valerian is unpleasing ; but this 
odour, still stronger in the roots, is much prized in the East, some of the 
most valued perfumes being made from the roots of various species. The 
celebrated Celtic Spikenard (V/V. celtica) is much used in Eastern perfumery, 
and in baths; the V. jatamansi is believed to be the Spikenard of the 
Scripture writers and the Nardus of the ancients ; and it is still used in the 
unguents of the East, as it was when Mary poured it on the Saviour from the 
costly box of alabaster. Sir William Jones, by his knowledge of the Sanscrit 
and Hindoo names of the plant, identified it with the ancient Spikenard; but 
he had no access to the Himalayan Mountains, where it grew. Dr. Royle, 
however, who was, several years later, in charge of the East India Company’s 
garden at Seharumpore, not far from the foot of the Himalayas, made 
further inquiries into the subject. He then learnt that Jatamansi, better 
known in India by the name of Balchur, was yearly brought down in con- 
siderable quantities, as an article of commerce, to the plains of India; and 
haying procured fresh roots, he planted them in the Botanic garden. He 
then found the plant to be a Valerian. It was called Nardostachys jatamansi 
by M. de Candolle, and there seems no reason to doubt that this was the nard 
or nerd of the ancients. The Arabs compare the root to the tail of an 
ermine, which it much resembles ; this appearance being produced by the 
circumstance that the woody fibres of the leaf and its footstalk are not 
decomposed in the cold and comparatively dry climate where they are pro- 
duced, but remain, and thus form a protection for the plant from the severity 
of the weather. Dr. Joseph Hooker, when in the Himalayan Mountains, 
received this plant with the eggs and rice brought to him as a gift. He says 
15—2 


116 VALERIANEZ—VALERIAN TRIBE 


that it smells strongly of patchouli. Gerarde says of our wild Valerian, “ It 
hath been had, and is to this day among poore people of our northern parts, 
in such veneration, that no brothe, pottage, or physicall meates are worth 
anything if Setewall were not at an end; wherefore some woman poet or 
other hath made these verses :— 
«¢* They that would have their heale 
Must put Setewall in their keale.’ ” 
But before the woman poet wrote this, Chaucer had alluded to “Canell and 
Setewal of pris,” and had elsewhere used this comparison :— 
‘*But he himselfe was swete as any roote 
Of licoris, or any Setewall.”’ 
Country people of our days commonly use the leaves as an application to 
wounds ; hence it is often called All-heal. Several old writers, as Michael 
Drayton, refer to its healing virtues. Its odour is peculiarly agreeable to cats ; 
they chew the roots and leaves eagerly, and appear to be intoxicated by the 
effects. Hence it is also known as Cat’s Valerian. 

3. Heart-leaved Valerian (/. pyrendica).—Leaves heart-shaped, 
toothed, and serrated, stalked ; upper ones with 1 or 2 pairs of small lan- 
ceolate leaflets ; root perennial. This plant is apparently naturalized in some 
of the Scottish woods. It is a native of the Pyrenees, and, being cultivated 
in gardens, has established itself in some of our woods and plantations. 


3. CORN-SALAD (édia). 


1. Common Corn-salad (/. olitéria).—Leaves long and narrow, wider 
towards the end, and somewhat toothed near the base ; flowers in leafy 
heads; capsule inflated, crowned by the three calyx teeth; root annual. 
This plant, common in corn-fields and on dry banks, is not very attractive. 
Its flowers are very small, white, and are more or less tinted with blue or 
lilac, appearing in April. The stems are from four to eight inches high, 
repeatedly two-forked, and the leaves are of a pale delicate green. The 
French call the plant Mdche, Salade de préire, and Salade de chanoine. It was 
formerly called, in England, White Pot-herb, and Lamb’s Lettuce. Its young 
leaves taste like lettuce, and are still sometimes cultivated for salad ; but the 
far larger size of the garden lettuce renders it a more desirable plant for the 
kitchen-garden, though the wild herb yields an earlier salad, for the leaves 
are fit to be gathered by March. There is no doubt, from its old French 
names, that it was one of the vegetables reared in the kitchen-garden of the 
monastery. Gerarde says of it, “In winter, and the first months of spring, 
it serves for a salad-herbe, and is with pleasure eaten with vinegar, salt, and 
oile, as other sallades be, among which it is none of the worst.” 

2. Carinated Corn-salad (/. carindta).—Fruit oblong, boat-shaped, 
crowned with a straight tooth; the two empty cells thin, and curving 
inwards at the edge; flowers in dense cymes; root-leaves tapering at the 
base; stem-leaves oblong ; root annual. ‘This very rare plant is found on 
some hedge-banks of England, bearing its pale-blue flowers from April to 
June. It is not regarded as a true native, and may be only a variety of 
F. olitoria. 


a COMMON CORN SALAD 3 SHARP- FRUITED €C Ss 
Fedia oltoria E. auricula 

2. CARINATED Cc Ss 4 SMOOTH NARROW - FRUITED Cc S 
F. carinata F. dentata 


Pl 107. 


f 

nis vo wf _ 

‘ aE: oe ’ a hy iy i 
uta ek ( ae 


ie ; 


van me 

ne ay ue : ay 
tid a 

Len 

2} " ¢ 


DIPSACEA.X—TEASEL TRIBE 1a We 


3. Sharp-fruited Corn-salad (Ff. auricula),— Fruit sub-globose, 
crowned with the single entire or three-toothed limb of the calyx; empty 
cells rounded on the back, larger than the fertile one, inflated ; flowers in 
lax cymes. Plant annual. This species is very similar to the last, differing 
from it chiefly in its broader and more inflated fruit and large empty cells. 
It occurs occasionally on cultivated lands, flowering from June to August. 

4. Smooth Narrow-fruited Corn-salad (I. dentdta).—Capsule egg- 
shaped, somewhat flat, 2-ribbed in front, and sharply pointed, crowned with 
the small, unequally-toothed calyx; root annual. This plant has a great 
number of varieties, which, differing as to the form, or in the smoothness or 
hairiness of the capsule, have been described by some botanists as so many 
species. It occurs in corn-fields and on hedge-banks, but is not a common 
plant, except in the west of England. Its flowers are of a pale flesh-colour, 
usually in corymbs, with a solitary blossom seated in the forks of the stem. 
It is a less tender plant than the Corn-salads usually are, and its flowers 
appear in June and July. 

5. Hairy-headed Corn-salad (F. eriocarpa).—This species, which was 
formerly regarded as a variety of F. dentata, much resembles it, but the 
cymes are more crowded, the fruit generally clothed with short, spreading 
curved hairs. The chief difference, however, is found in the large, slightly 
oblique calyx, which is bell-shaped. It flowers in June and July, and has 
been recorded from Cornwall, Dorset, and Worcester. 


Order XLV. DIPSACEA!—TEASEL TRIBE. 


Calyx superior, surrounded by several more or less rigid involucral 
bracts ; corolla tubular, with 4—5 unequal lobes; stamens 4, the anthers 
not united; style 1; stigma not cleft; fruit dry, 1-seeded, often crowned 
by the pappus-like calyx; flowers in heads. The plants of this order are all 
herbaceous or under-shrubs. They are chiefly natives of the south of 
Europe, Barbary, the Levant, and the Cape of Good Hope, rarely growing 
on mountains. Their properties are not remarkable, and the Fuller's Teasel.. 
is the only plant of any great importance, though some species of Scabious 
possess a small degree of astringency. 

1. TEASEL (Dipsacus).—Heads with numerous general bracts at the base ; 
outer calyx (involucel) forming a thickened margin to the fruit ; inner cup- 
shaped, entire ; receptacle with rigid awns; fruit with four sides. Name 
from the Greek dipsao, to thirst, because the leaves hold water. 

2. SCcABLOUS (Scalidsa).—Heads with numerous general bracts at the 
base ; outer calyx membranaceous, and plaited, inner of 5 bristles ; receptacle 
scaly ; fruit nearly cylindrical. Name from the Latin scabies, the leprosy, 
because some of the species were used as a remedy for that disease. 

3. KNAUTIA (Knaitia).—Heads with numerous general bracts at the 
base ; outer calyx minute, with 4 small teeth, inner cup-shaped ; receptacle 
hairy ; fruit 4-sided. Name in honour of Christopher Knaut, a German 
botanist. 


118 DIPSACEAL 


1. TEASEL (Lipsacus). 


1. Wild Teasel (D. sylvéstris).—Leaves opposite, united at the base, 
undivided ; scales of the receptacle straight at the extremity. Plant biennial. 
In many of our woods, during the winter months, there is scarcely an object 
more conspicuous than the chaffy bristly heads of this Wild Teasel. 
Hundreds of them, standing up on stout prickly stems nearly six feet high, 
may be seen, looking so like the brooms used in cleansing ceilings, that we 
wonder not to hear the cottager call the plant Wood-broom; while another 
country name, Shepherd’s Staff, is not inappropriate. The large leaves, 
united at their base around the stem, form a hollow, which serves to hold 
the rain or dews, and sometimes we have found as much as half a pint of 
clear liquid deposited in this leafy cup, in which many a luckless insect lay 
drowning. To some lover of classic lore, this circumstance suggested the 
names by which it is still often called, Venus’s Bath, or Venus’s Cup. The 
thirsty traveller, during July, might be glad to avail himself of the refresh- 
ment of this liquid but for the presence of these insect carcases, and in early 
times it was collected to serve as a cosmetic, and as a cure for inflamed eyes. 
It may be well to point out that this arrangement of the leaves, whereby 
the stem is surrounded by water, is designed to protect the flowers from 
ants and other creeping honey-robbers, who would otherwise climb the stem 
and spoil the flowers without rendering the plant any service. It has 
recently been found that the plant renders this water slightly digestive, and 
that certain cells of the leaf send out hair-like processes into it through 
which the digested insect-matter is absorbed to nourish the plant. 

The larva of a small insect which infests the head of the Teasel is said, 
by Lemery, to be of much use in the cure of intermittent fevers. This insect 
was long considered to “charm” away agues ; and Gerarde tells us of charms 
used for the cure of this malady, which may make us thankful for the 
improvement of medical science. ‘It is needlesse,” he says, “here to alledge 
those things that are added touching the little wormes found in the head of 
the Teazel, and which are to be hanged about the neck, for they are nothing 
else but most vaine and trifling toies, as myselfe have proved a little before 
the impression hereof, having a most grievous ague, and of long continuance. 
Notwithstanding physick charmes, these wormes hanged about my necke, 
spiders put into a walnut-shell, and divers such foolish toies that I was con- 
strained to take by fantasticke people’s procurement ; notwithstanding, I say, 
my helpe came from God Himselfe, for these medicines, and all other such 
things, did me no good at all.” Even in our own days, some of these 
practices have been used; for Kirby and Spence relate that nine of these 
larve, inclosed in a goose-quill or reed, are commonly worn for agues. 

The flowers of the Teasel are to be seen in July, growing on the large 
conical heads. They are of purplish lilac colour, not expanding all at once, 
but in rings. 

2. Fuller’s Teasel (D. fullénwm).—Leaves sessile, undivided ; scales of 
the receptacle hooked at the extremity; involucres spreading, or turning 
downwards; root biennial. The chief difference between this and the fore- 
going species consists in the hooked bristles, but the flowers are also generally 


L Yep ies 


A ; ’ rq \ \@ aVey | 
V9 OO ® \: cM 


l FULLERS TEASEL 2. WILD TEASEL 
Dipgacus fFullonum D. sylvestris 
3 SMALL TEASEL , 


D. pilosus 


Pl. 108. 


TEASEL TRIBE 119 
paler in colour. As the hooks disappear when the plant is grown on poor 
soils, there is much reason to believe that it is but a variety of D. sylvéstris. 
Though occurring occasionally in waste places and on hedge-banks, the Fuller’s 
Teasel cannot be regarded as truly wild; having been long cultivated for 
the use of the cloth manufacturers, it is often found apparently wild near 
the Teasel fields. 

In some of our northern counties, as well as in Wiltshire, Essex, Somer- 
setshire, and Gloucestershire, large quantities of the Fuller’s Teasel are 
planted that their chaffy heads may be used in carding wool. No mechanical 
contrivance answers this purpose so well as to supersede this primitive 
method of dressing woollen cloth ; and each piece of cloth is found to con- 
sume from 1,500 to 2,000 Teasel heads. The heads are fixed round a large 
wheel, which is made to revolve in such a way that the awns may, as it is 
termed, “tease” the nap of the cloth. Dyer, in his poem, “The Fleece,” 
alludes to the treatment which the cloth receives after having been 
thoroughly wetted :— 

** Then up-hung on rugged tenters to the fervid sun, 
Its level surface reeking, it expands, 
-And brightening in each rigid discipline, 
And gathering worth, as human life, in pains, 
Conflicts and troubles. Soon the clothier’s shears 
And burler’s thistle skims the surface sheen.”’ 

The Teasel is usually grown by small farmers or cottagers, and its produce 
is very uncertain, being much affected by the season. There is also consider- 
able trouble in drying the heads so as to preserve the hooks from breaking 
off. The large heads are technically termed “Kings,” and the smaller 
“Princes”; the latter are better adapted for the finer cloths, while the larger 
are used for coarse thick fabrics. In Essex it was some years since customary 
to sow caraway along with the Teasel. The Teasel-gatherers during July or 
August collect the heads into bundles for the market. Manufacturers rather 
give the preference to the Teasels reared in Gloucestershire, in which county 
they are said to have been earliest planted. They are believed to have been 
cultivated first in this country about the latter part of the reign of 
Edward III. 

The French call this plant Chardon & Foulon ; the Germans, Kardendistel ; 
the Italians, Dissaco ; the Dutch, Vollers Kaarden; and the Spaniards, Car- 
deucha ; most of the European names, like our own, referring to its use. 
This is very ancient, and either this or some similar plant seems to have been 
used by the celebrated Roman fullers, whose occupation gave employment to 
so large a number of people. Beckmann says that the fullers received the 
cloth as it came from the loom, that it might be ‘scoured, walked, and 
smoothed.” ‘This “walking ” was effected by stamping it with the feet. The 
rough wool raised by this operation was combed off partly by the skin of a 
hedge-hog, and partly by some plant of the thistle kind, in order to give the 
cloth a nap. Though the Teasel is not a thistle, yet it was probably con- 
sidered one in former days, and its old English as well as German name still 
hints at its connection with the thistle tribe. 

It is remarkable that the pile or nap of the cloth should in India be drawn 
out by means of a plant, for Sir Joseph Hooker says that in the Himalaya the 


120 DIPSACEA 


blankets were made of goats’-wool, teased into a satiny surface by little 
Teasel-like brushes of bamboo. 

Old writers recommend Teasel-heads for hygrometrical purposes. “ Tezils, 
or Fuller’s thistle,” says Wilsford, “being gathered and hung up in the house 
when the aire may come freely to it, upon the alteration of cold and windy 
weather will grow smoother, and against rain will close up his prickles.” 

3. Small Teasel (D. pildésus).—Leaves stalked, with a small leaflet at the 
base on each side; stem angular, rough, with small prickles turning down- 
wards ; flower-stalks bristly ; leaves egg-shaped, pointed, and serrated ; root 
biennial. The Teasels hitherto described could not be mistaken for any other 
plants. This species has, however, at first sight much the appearance of a 
scabious. It is not a common plant, but grows here and there in moist 
hedges south of Yorkshire. The author has found it about Wouldham, in 
Kent, and it occurs in various parts of Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex, Berkshire, 
and Surrey. The heads of flowers are nearly globose, rarely so large as a 
walnut, the bristly receptacle being studded, in August and September, with 
whitish corollas, having remarkably protruding anthers. ‘The stem is three 
or four feet high, branched, and leafy ; the whole plant is very rough. It 
has been commended as affording a sudorific medicine. 


2. SCABIOUS (Scabidsa). 


1. Devil’s-bit Scabious (S. swcisw).—Corolla 4-cleft, nearly regular, 
hairy ; heads of flowers nearly globose ; bracts of the involucre in two or 
three rows; root-leaves numerous ; stem-leaves usually few ; root perennial. 
The rich purplish-blue flowers of this Scabious, with their reddish anthers, 
may be seen from July to October growing among the short grasses of the 
dry pasture-lands of our hillsides, and standing on a stem a foot or more in 
height. It is particularly abundant on chalky lands, but is found on other 
soils, and adorns heaths and meadows. The short blackish root of the plant 
terminates abruptly, being what the botanist terms premorse, and looking 
exactly as if bitten off, though this condition is rarely, if ever, apparent 
during the first year of growth. The notion once prevailed very generally 
that, to use the words of an old writer, ‘‘ The Divile for envie that he beareth 
to mankind, bit it off, because that otherwise it would be good for manie 
uses.” Now that all can read the Scriptures, and trace there all that has ever 
been revealed concerning the Spirit of Darkness, the Great Enemy of man, 
these notions of our fathers are seen plainly enough to be absurd; yet 
learned men of those times gravely declared them, and ignorant men received 
them with unquestioning faith. Another old herbalist (Culpepper) says: 
“The herb or the root (all that the devil hath left of it), being boiled in wine 
and drank, is very powerful against the plague and all pestilential diseases 
or fevers, poisons also, and the bitings of venomous beasts. It helpeth also 
those that are inwardly bruised by any casualty or outwardly by falls or 
blows.” He states that “This root was longer, until the devil (as the friars 
say) bit away the rest of it from spite, envying its usefulness to mankind ; 
for sure he was not troubled with any disease for which it is proper.” 
Gerarde, however, very properly describes these opinions as the sayings of 
‘‘old fantasticke charmers,” but he places great faith in the efficacy of the 


> 


1 DEVILS-BIT SCABIOUS a SMALL SCABIOUS 
Scabiosa succisa S. columbaria 
FIELD KNAUTIA 


Knautia arvensis 


Pl. 109. 


TEASEL TRIBE 121 


herb. The strange and, as it appears to us, profane notion seems to have 
been also shared on the Continent, for one of the French names of the plant 
is still Mors de Diable, and the Dutch call it Duvelles bit. It is, however, more 
generally in France now called La Scabieuse, and in Holland Schurftkruid. It 
is the Scabiosa of the Italians; the Hscabiosa of the Spanish ; and the Skabzose 
of the Germans, these names all referring to its general use in cutaneous dis- 
orders, for which it is highly extolled by Etmiiller. The root is slightly 
bitter and astringent. Linneus says that the dried leaves are used to dye 
wool of a yellow or greencolour. The beautiful and fragrant Scabious of our 
gardens (S. atro-purpirea), the Mourning Bride, as the flower is often called, 
affords an excellent green dye, and it has been suggested that it might yield 
a good ingredient for tanning leather. 

2. Small Scabious (8. columbdria).—Corolla 5-cleft, downy, the outer 
flowers longest; heads nearly globose; root-leaves oblong, variously cut, 
upper leaves pinnatifid; root perennial. This species is common on grassy 
lands, especially on those of the east coast of England. Its purplish-lilac 
flowers, with yellow anthers, have a more radiant form, as if more fully 
expanded, than those of the premorse kind. Its leaves, too, are of a lighter 
hue, the flowers much paler, and the whole plant stouter. Its stem is about 
a foot high, and it flowers in July and August. 


3. KNAUTIA (Knaitza). 


Field Knautia (K. arvénsis).—Lower leaves simple, slightly serrated, 
and hairy ; stem-leaves pinnatifid ; stem not much branched, bristly ; inner 
calyx with a fringe of 8—16 awned teeth ; root perennial. This tall and 
handsome plant often overtops the ripening corn in June and July, or is 
levelled with it by the reaper a month later. The flowers are so much like 
those of the scabious, that the plant was long retained in that genus, and 
called Scabidsa arvensis. It grows, too, very commonly in meadows in all 
parts of the kingdom, and we might say with the American poet, Lowell, as 
we look at some gathered or stray blossom— 

‘*Then think I of deep shadows in the grass, 

Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze ; 
Where as the breezes pass, 

The gleaming rushes bend a thousand ways :— 
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, 

Or whiter in the wind :—of waters blue, 

That from the distance sparkle through 


Some woodland gap :—-and of a sky above, 
Where one light cloud, like a stray lamb, doth move.” 


The flowers of the Knautia are large and convex, the outer florets being 
larger and bluer than the inner ones, and cut into usequal segments. It 
forms a beautiful addition to the wild nosegay gathered at this season, and it 
is amusing to see how, under the influence of tobacco smoke, the petals 
gradually assume a rich light-green colour, and seem at first uninjured by the 
process, though they wither soon after. Several bluish-lilac flowers are 
affected in a similar way by the influence of this smoke ; and a purple violet, 
if placed in a bottle containing smelling-salts, soon assumes a most singular 
and beautiful green tint. 

IL—16 


122 COMPOSIT AA 


Order XLVI. COMPOSITAZ—COMPOUND FLOWERS. 


Calyx tube adhering strictly to the ovary, the limb mostly becoming a 
pappus that is either a chaffy margin of the fruit, or a tuft, or a ring of 
bristles, hairs, or silky feathers; corolla regular or irregular, tubular or 
strap-shaped ; stamens 4 or 5, united by their anthers ; ovary inferior, 1 to 
each style, 1-celled ; style simple, with a simple or 2-cleft stigma, sheathed 
by the tube of the anthers ; fruit a solitary erect seed, crowned by the pappus, 
which usually consists of a plume of simple or serrated feathery hairs, some- 
times elevated on a stalk, but which is in other cases merely a chaffy margin. 
The blossoms of this order are called compound because they consist of a 
number of small flowers (florets), inclosed within a calyx-like involucre, 
composed of a number of bracts. These florets are inserted upon the dilated 
top of the flower-stalk (receptacle) which is either furnished with chaffy scales 
or naked. This order is divided into three sub-orders. 


Sub-order 1. THe Cuicory TRIBE (Cichoracec). 


In this the florets are all strap-shaped and perfect ; that is, each contains 
5 stamens and a pistil, which is not swollen beneath its fork. The plants 
mostly abound in milky juice. Some are slightly astringent, others bitter, 
but they are chiefly remarkable for their narcotic properties. They are 
generally innocuous plants, and their bitterness being lessened by culture, 
they form in some cases wholesome vegetables. The prevailing colour of 
the British species of this division is yellow, as in the Dandelion, Goat’s- 
beard, and Hawkweeds ; but the Alpine Sow-thistle and the Salsafy have 
purple, and the Chicory bright blue flowers. 


Sub-order I]. Toe THIstLE TRIBE (Cynarocephale). 


In this division the florets form a convex head, and are all tubular and 
perfect, except in Centauwréa, in which the outer florets are larger than the 
inner, and are destitute of stamens and pistils. The style is swollen below 
its branches. The flowers are usually purple, often varying to white ; the 
Carline-thistle appears to be yellow, owing to the greater size of the bracts, 
but the florets are purple ; the Corn-flower is bright blue. Their properties 
are bitter and tonic. 


Sub-order III. CoRYMBIFER. 


This sub-order is composed of two groups. In the first the florets are 
all tubular, 5-cleft, having stamens and pistils, and forming a flat head, the 
style not swollen below the stigma. These form the group 7ubiflore. In 
the second division, termed Radiatw, the central florets are tubular, 5-cleft, 
having stamens and pistils ; the outer florets are strap-shaped, forming a ray, 
and furnished with pistils only: the style not swollen below the stigma. 
Senecio vulgaris, the Common Groundsel, has no rays. The flowers of the first 
division of this sub-order are mostly yellow; but some, like the Hemp- 
agrimony and Butter-bur, have flesh-coloured or purple flowers. A power- 
fully bitter principle resides in many of the plants, as in the Wormwood. 
In the Radiate the prevailing colour of the disk is yellow, and of the ray 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 123 


white or yellow. Of the former, the Daisy is an example; the latter may 
be seen in the Golden Rod and Corn-marigold. In one instance, the Yarrow, 
both disk and ray are white; and in some, as the Michaelmas Daisy, the 
petals of the ray are purple. Several tonic and bitter plants, like the 
Chamomile, are found in this group. 

The order of compound flowers is very extensive. The number of genera 
is given by Hooker as 768, and of species as 10,000 ; the Compositz com- 
prehend about one-tenth of all known plants, their proportions varying in 
different parts of the world. In temperate regions they are mostly herbaceous 
plants, but near the equator they are shrubs or trees. 

It should be noted that in the conspicuous grouping of otherwise insignifi- 
cant flowers the Composite show a considerable advance upon the Umbellifere. 
The success of this form of inflorescence is largely due in the Hadiate to the 
plan of enlarging the outer series of florets in order to make the flower-head 
more attractive—a development of the method adopted by guelder-rose and 
scabious. Most of the flowers in this order produce honey, and the anthers 
shed their pollen before the stigmas are mature. Owing to the union of the 
anthers a tube is formed into which the pollen is shed on top of the pistil. 
Later the pistil divides at the top into two branches, the stigmas, but at first 
these have their sensitive faces pressed together, and as the pistil lengthens 
they act as a brush to push the pollen out of the anther-tube against the 
bodies of insects that walk over the flower-head in search of honey. Insects 
that visit Composites are therefore always more or less covered with pollen, 
part of which they leave on the stigmas of older heads. Plants that mature 
their anthers first are termed proterandrous or protandrous, whilst those 
in which the stigmas are developed first are known as proterogynous or 
protogynous. 


Sub-order 1. Cutcory TRIBE (Cichoracec). 


All the florets strap-shaped, having stamens and pistils. 

1. GoAT’s-BEARD (7’ragopégon).—Involucre simple, of 8—10 long bracts in 
one series, united at the base ; receptacle dotted ; fruit rough, with longi- 
tudinal ridges tapering into a beak ; pappus feathery. Name in Greek signi- 
fying a goat’s-beard, from the bearded fruit. 

2. OX-TONGUE (Helminthia).—Involucre of about 8 equal bracts, surrounded 
by 3—5 heart-shaped leaf-like bracts; receptacle dotted ; fruit rough, with 
transverse wrinkles, rounded at the end and beaked; pappus feathery. 
Name from the Greek, helminthos, a small worm, from the form of the fruit. 

3. Picris.—Involucre of many compact and upright equal bracts, with 
several small narrow ones spreading at the base ; fruit rcugh, with transverse 
ridges, not beaked ; pappus of two rows, the inner one only feathery. Name 
from the Greek pikros, bitter. 

4. Hawxk-pit (Apdrgia).—Involucre with the bracts imbricated* 
unequally, the outer scales smaller, black and hairy, in several rows ; 
receptacle slightly dotted ; fruit tapering to a point; pappus of one row, 
feathery. Origin of name uncertain. 

5. Turincta (Zhrincia).—Involucre of several rows, the outer smaller , 

* TImbricated, laid one over the other, like tiles on a house. 


16—2 


124 COMPOSIT Ai 


receptacle slightly dotted ; fruit of the outer florets forming a short scaly 
cup, of the rest long and feathery. Name from the Greek, thrinkos, a battle- 
ment, from the turret-like form of the seed-crown of the marginal florets. 

6. Cat’s-EAR (Hypocheris).—Involucre oblong, bracts numerous, imbri- 
cated ; receptacle chaffy ; fruit rough, often beaked ; pappus feathery, having” 
often a row of short bristles outside. Name in Greek denoting its fitness 
for hogs. 

7. Lerruce (Lactica).—Involucre oblong, its bracts membranous at the 
margin and imbricated, containing but few flowers ; receptacle naked ; fruit 
flattened, beaked ; pappus hairy. Name from lac, milk, from its milky juice. 

8. BLUE Sow-THISTLE (Mulgédiwm).—Involucre double, many-flowered, 
inner of one row of equal bracts, outer of short lax ones overlapping each 
other ; receptacle naked ; pappus brittle. Named from mulgeo, to milk, from 
its milky juice. 

9. SoW-THISTLE (Sénchus).—Involucre with 2 or 3 rows of unequal 
imbricated bracts, swollen at the base, and few-flowered ; receptacle naked ; 
fruit flattened, transversely wrinkled, not beaked ; pappus hairy. Name in 
Greek, alluding to its hollow stems. 

10. HAWRK’S-BEARD (Crépis).—Involucre double, inner of one row, outer of 
short loose bracts ; receptacle naked ; fruit not flattened, furrowed, tapering 
upwards ; pappus soft and feathery, usually white, abundant. Name in Greek 
signifying a sandal, but the reason for this name is unknown. 

11. BorkHaAts1A.—Inyolucre oval, with awl-shaped bracts which soon fall 
off; receptacle naked ; fruit rounded, transversely wrinkled, and having a 
long beak. Name in honour of Moritz Borkhausen, a German botanist. 

12. DANDELION (Ledniodon).—Involucre imbricated with numerous bracts, 
the outer ones loose, and often turned downwards; receptacle dotted ; fruit 
slightly flattened, rough, with a long and slender beak. Name from the 
Greek, leon, a lion, and odous, a tooth, from the tooth-like edges of the leaves. 

13. HAWKWEED (Hierdcium).—Involucre imbricated with numerous oblong 
bracts ; receptacle dotted ; fruit angular, furrowed, with an entire or toothed 
margin at the top, without a beak. Name from the Greek, dieraz, a hawk, 
because it was supposed that birds of prey used the plant to strengthen their 
powers of vision. 

14. NIpPLE-worT (Ldpsana).—Involucre a single row of erect bracts, with 
4 —5 small ones at the base, few-flowered ; receptacle naked ; fruit flattened, 
furrowed ; pappus none. An old Latin name. 

15. Succory (Cichdérium).—Involucre in two rows, inner of 8 bracts, which 
bend back after flowering, outer of 5 smaller loose scales ; receptacle naked, 
or slightly hairy ; fruit thick above, tapering downwards ; pappus a double 
row of chaffy scales. Name from the Arabic, chikoiych. 


Sub-order II. 'THISTLE-TRIBE (Cynarocephale). 
Florets all tubular. 


16. Burpock (Arctiwm).—Involucre globose, leathery bracts ending in 
hooked points ; receptacle chaffy ; fruit oblong, 4-sided ; pappus short. Name 
from the Greek, arctos, a bear, from the roughness of the involucres, 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 125 


17. Saw-worrt (Serrdtula).—Stamens and pistils often on different plants ; 
involucre imbricated, bracts not prickly ; receptacle chaffy or bristly ; fruit 
flattened, not beaked ; pappus hairy. Name from the Latin, serrula, a little 
saw, the leaves being finely serrated. 

18. SaussUREA.—Involucre imbricated, bracts not prickly ; anthers bristly 
at the base ; receptacle chaffy ; pappus double, outer bristly, inner longer, 
feathery. Named in honour of the two De Saussures, Swiss botanists. 

19. THISTLE (Cédrduus).—Involucre swollen below, imbricated with 
spinous bracts; receptacle bristly ; pappus hairy, united by a ring at the 
base, and soon falling off. The Latin name of the plant. 

20. PLUME-THISTLE (Cnécus).—Involucre swollen below, imbricated with 
spinous scales; pappus equal and feathery. Name from the Greek for a 
thistle—knekos. 

21. COTTON-THISTLE (Onopérdum).—Involucre swollen below, imbricated, 
the leathery bracts spreading and spinous ; receptacle honeycombed by little 
pits with toothed edges; fruit 4-angled; pappus hairy, rough. Name of 
Greek origin. 

22. CARLINE-THISTLE (Carlina).—Involucre imbricated, swollen at the 
base, the outer bracts loose, with numerous spines, the inner coloured, spread- 
ing, and resembling a ray ; receptacle chaffy. Name the same as Carolina, 
from a tradition that an angel showed the root of one of the species to 
Charlemagne, as a remedy for the plague. 

23. KNAPWEED, CoRN BLUEBOTTLE, ETC. (Centawréa).—Involucre imbri- 
cated ; receptacle bristly ; pappus hairy or none ; outer florets large, irregular, 
destitute of stamens and pistils. Name from the Centaur Chiron, who is said 
to have used it for healing wounds. 


Sub-order III. CORYMBIFER 2. 
Florets of the disk tubular ; marginal florets often strap-shaped. 
1. THE Tansy Group (Tubiflore). 


24. Bur-MARIGOLD (Bidens).—Involucre of many bracts, the outer ones 
often leafy ; pappus of 2—5 awns, which are rough, with minute teeth point- 
ing downwards. Name from the Latin, dis, double, and dens, a tooth, from - 
the pappus bristles. 

25. GALINSOGA (Galinsoga).—Flower-heads small, with yellow ray-florets. 
Involucre of 1 row of bracts with chaffy margins; receptacle conical, with 
lance-shaped scales ; pappus of fringed scales in one series. Named after 
De Galinsoga, the Spanish botanist. 

26. COTTON-WEED (Didétis).—Involucre hemispherical, bracts oblong, im- 
bricated ; pappus none ; corolla with two ears at the base, which remain and 
crown the fruit. Name from the Greek, dis, double, ous, dtos, an ear, from 
the form of the fruit. 

27. Tansy (Lanacétum).—Inyolucre cup-shaped, imbricated ; receptacle 
naked ; fruit crowned with a chaffy border. Name altered from the Greek 
athinatos, not dying. 

28. Wormwoop (A7temésia).—Involucre roundish, imbricated, containing 
but few flowers. Name from Artemis, the Diana of the Greeks. 


126 COMPOSIT At 


29. Hemp-AGRIMONY (Hupatérium).—Heads few-flowered ; involucre im- 
bricated, oblong; receptacle naked; styles much longer than the florets. 
Name from Mithridates Eupator, King of Pontus, who is said to have first 
used it. 

30. Gotpy-Locks (Linosyris).—Involucre of one row of bracts, surrounded 
by several longer ones, or imbricated ; receptacle honeycombed ; pappus in a 
double row, feathery, rough. Name from linum, flax, and osyris, a name 
given by Pliny to some flexible plant. 

31. EVERLASTING (Antenndria).—Stamens and pistils in separate flowers, 
and on different plants; involucre imbricated, the inner ones coloured or 
chaffy at the ends ; receptacle naked ; pappus hairy. Name from the hairs of 
the male pappus, which resemble the antenne of insects. 

32. CUDWEED (Gnaphdlium).—Involucre roundish, dry, imbricated, often 
coloured ; receptacle naked ; pappus hairy. Name from the Greek, gnaphdlion, 
soft down, with which the leaves are covered. 

33. FrtAco.—Involucre tapering upwards, imbricated, of a few long, 
pointed bracts ; receptacle chafty in the circumference ; pappus hairy ; florets 
few, the outer ones bearing pistils only. Name from the Latin, jilum, a 
thread, from the thread-like down which invests the plant. 

34. Burrer-BuR (Petasites).—Involucre a single row of narrow bracts ; 
receptacle naked ; stamens and pistils usually on different plants. Name from 
the Greek, pétasos, a covering for the head, from the large size of the leaves. 


2. Daisy Group (Ladiate). 


35. Coxt’s-roor (Twussilégo).—Involucre a single row of narrow bracts, 
with a few outer shorter ones; receptacle naked ; florets of the ray narrow, 
in several rows; of the disk few ; all yellow. Name from the Latin, tussis, 
a cough, from its use in that malady. 

36. FLEA-BANE (Erégeron).—Involucre imbricated with narrow scales ; 
receptacle naked ; florets of the ray in many rows, very narrow, different in 
colour from those of the disk. Name in Greek signifying growing old early, 
from the early appearance of the grey seed-down. 

37. Srarwort (Aster).—Involucre imbricated, a few scales on the flower- 
stalk ; receptacle naked, honeycombed ; florets of the ray in one row, white 
or purple; of the disk, yellow ; pappus hairy, in many rows. Name from 
the Greek, aster, a star. 

38. GoLDEN-ROD (Soliddgo).—Involucre imbricated ; receptacle naked ; 
florets all yellow ; pappus hairy, in one or two rows. Name from the Latin, 
solidare, to unite, from its supposed property of healing wounds. 

°39, GROUNDSEL AND RaGwort (Senécio).—Involucre imbricated and 
oblong, the bracts often tipped with brown, a few smaller ones at the base ; 
florets all yellow, the outer sometimes wanting. Name from the Latin, sener, 
an old man, from the white seed-down. 

40. LEOPARD’S-BANE (Dorénicum).—Involucre cup-shaped, bracts in two 
rows, equal ; florets all yellow ; pappus hairy, wanting in the florets of the 
ray. Name of uncertain origin. 

41, ELECAMPANE, ETC. (Jnula).—Involucre imbricated in many rows; 
receptacle naked ; florets all yellow ; anthers with two bristles at the base. 


‘ 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 127 


Name, the old Latin designation, probably a corruption of Helénula, Little 
Helen. 

42, FLEA-BANE (Pulicdria).—Involucre loosely imbricated, in few rows ; 
pappus in two rows, outer one short, membranous, cup-shaped, and toothed. 
inner hairy ; receptacle naked ; anthers with bristles at their base. Name 
from pulex, a flea, to which insect the plant is said to be obnoxious. 

43. Daisy (Béllis).—Involucre of two rows of equal blunt bracts ; 
receptacle conical ; outer florets white, inner yellow; pappus none. Name 
from the Latin, bellus, pretty. 

44, Ox-BYE (Chrysanthemum).—Involucre nearly flat, the bracts membran- 
aceous at the margin; receptacle naked; pappus none. Name from the 
Greek, chrysos, gold, and anthos, a flower. 

45. WiLtp CHAMOMILE (Matricdria).—Involucre conical, hemispherical, or 
nearly flat, the scales imbricated, and usually membranaceous at their 
margins ; pappus a membranaceous border, or wanting; receptacle naked. 
Name from its former use in affections of the matrix. 

46. CHAMOMILE (Anthemis).—Involucre cup-shaped, or nearly flat, the 
scales imbricated, membranaceous at their margins; receptacle chaffy ; 
pappus none, or a membranaceous border. Name from the Greek, anthos, a 
flower, from its numerous blossoms. 

47. YArRow, Miron (Achilléa).—Involucre egg-shaped, or oblong, 
imbricated ; receptacle flat, chaffy ; florets of the ray broad, 5—10; pappus 
none. Name from Achilles, who is said to have first used it as a healing 
herb. 


ANOMALOUS GENUS. 


48. BUR-WEED (Xdnthiwm).—Stamens and pistils in separate flowers on 
the same plant. Stamen-bearing flowers with an involucre of few scales, and 
many small heads of flowers upon a common receptacle ; calyx none ; corolla 
sessile. Pistil-bearing flower with its involucre single, prickly, with two 
beaks, inclosing two flowers; calyx none; corolla none; the two stigmas 
alone protruded from the beaks. Fruit one-seeded. Name from zanthos, 
yellow or fair, because an infusion is said to have been used for staining the 
hair yellow. 


Sub-order I. CuHtcory TRIBE (Cichoracee). 
1. GOAT’S-BEARD (77 agopégon). 
* Florets all strap-shaped ; having stamens and pistils. 


1. Yellow Goat’s-beard (7. praténsis).—Involucre about the same 
length as the corolla, or rather longer ; leaves broad at the base, clasping the 
stem, very long, tapering, channelled, and undivided ; flower-stalks slightly 
thickened above ; root biennial. This plant, which is not uncommon, is one 
of easy recognition ; for the long leaves, almost as slender as those of the 
young wheat, distinguish it at once from the other species of compound 
flowers, with their variously cut foliage. The stem is about two feet high, 
with sea-green bloom upon its surface, and the flower is yellow, with either 
yellow or dark-brown anthers. The blossom forms one of the best floral 


128 COMPOSIT 


indices of the hour of the day, opening at sunrise, and closing at noon. It 
flowers from May to July. Bishop Mant says of it :— 
** And goodly now the noontide hour, 

When from his high meridian tower 

The sun looks down in majesty, 

What time about the grassy Jea 

The Goat’s-beard, prompt his rise to hail 

With broad expanded disk, in veil 

Close mantling wraps its yellow head, 

And goes, as peasants say, to bed.” 


This plant in country places is called Noonday Flower, Jack-go-to-bed-at- 
noon, and Star of Jerusalem. 

After flowering, the round ball of pappus is very conspicuous, being larger 
than that of any other wild flower, concave above, and interwoven; not 
white, like that of the dandelion, but of a light brownish colour, and each 
little shuttlecock-like plume placed on a long stalk. It is to this ball that 
the plant owes its rustic name of Goat’s-beard, which has its synonym in 
several European countries. Thus the Germans call it Bocksbart ; the Dutch, 
Loksbaard ; the Italians, Barba di becco ; the Spaniards, Barba cabruna ; and 
the French, Sersi/i. 

Gerarde says of the Goat’s-beard: “The rootes boyled in water until they 
be tender, and buttered as parsneps and carrots, are a most pleasing and 
wholesome meate, in delicate taste farre surpassing either parsneps or carrots; 
which meate procures appetite, warmeth the stomacke, prevaileth greatly in 
consumptions, and strengtheneth those that have been sicke of a long linger- 
ing disease.” Our species includes the 7. minor and the 7. grandiflora of 
some botanists ; the var. minor, which is the more plentiful in this country, 
has the involucral bracts twice the length of the rays. The plant grows in 
meadows and pastures, and sometimes in hedges. 

2. Purple Goat’s-beard, or Salsafy (7. porrifélius).—Involucre 
longer than the florets; flower-stalks thickened upwards ; leaves tapering, 
slightly broader just above the base, then gradually narrowing to an acute 
point ; root perennial. This pretty purple species is often seen in gardens, 
and in the moist meadows of some parts of the kingdom; but it is local. It 
is rather a naturalized than a truly wild flower, and is very similar, save in 
the colour of its blossom, to the common Goat’s-beard. The long tapering 
roots may be much improved by culture; they are mild and sweet, and 
resemble asparagus in flavour. The plant is still cultivated in France and 
Germany for these edible roots, and was so in England previously to the 
introduction into our kitchen-gardens of the Spanish Salsafy (Scorzonera 
hispanica), which occurred soon after the skirret had been first planted here. 
The roots of the common Goat’s-beard are equally sweet and nutritious, and 
some old writers preferred them to those of the purple kind. Like the other 
species, it closes at noonday. 


2. OX-TONGUE (Helminthia). 


Bristly Ox-tongue (H. echioides).—Outer scales of the involucre five in 
number, large, heart-shaped, with rounded notches at the margin ; stem rough, 
with stiff hairs seated on tubercles; lower leaves lanceolate, upper clasping 


1 YELLOW GOAT $-BEARD 3 BRISFLY OX-TONGUE 


Tragopogon pratensis Holminthia echioides 
Z PURPLE G 4 HAWK*WEED PICRIS 
T. parrifolmus Pieris bieracioides 


Pl, 110, 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 129 


the stem, and heart-shaped ; root perennial. This plant is clearly distinguished 
by its large heart-shaped involucre. Its leaves are glossy green, their surface, 
like the stem, being dotted over with many white warty protuberances, from 
which the prickles spring. The juice is milky, and the leaves, when young, 
form a good vegetable, being either boiled, or, in some countries, pickled. 
The French call the plant Langue de Bewf. The shining seeds are a beautiful 
object for the microscope. Its English range is from Durham southward. 
Dr. George Johnston remarks, that he found the Ox-tongue at Berwick, by 
the Pier Road, and it extends thence to Haddington. It occurs but rarely in 
Ireland, about Dublin. ‘The stem of this plant is two or three feet high, and 
much branched. Its small yellow heads appear from June to September. 
It grows chiefly on dry banks and field borders, and is not very generally 
distributed, though by no means uncommon in Kent, Devonshire, and 
some other counties. Sir J. D. Hooker retains this in the Linnean genus 
Pieris. 
3. Proris (Péris). 


Hawkweed Picris (P. hieracioides).—Stem branched, and, as well as 
the leaves, rough with forked and hooked bristles ; upper leaves somewhat 
clasping, lance-shaped, and toothed ; flower-stalks with numerous scale-like 
bracts ; flower-heads corymbose, outer bracts of the involucre narrow and lax ; 
root perennial. This is rather a slender plant, two or three feet in height, 
its handsome yellow flowers expanding in Juneand July. It is very common 
on the borders of fields, road-sides, and sea-cliffs as far north as Roxburgh ; 
also in the Channel Islands. It is very bitter, hence its name of Picris. The 
French also call it Picride ; the Germans, Bitterkraut ; and the Dutch, Bitter- 
kruid. 

4. HAWK-BIT (Apdrgia). 


1. Rough Hawk-bit (4. Aispida).—Leaves all from the root, pinnatifid, 
with the lobes pointing backward, rough with forked bristles ; stalk swollen 
at top, bearing a single head; pappus with an outer row of bristles ; root 
perennial. This plant, which opens its yellow flowers from June to September, 
is very common on pastures and meadows, and spangles over the short 
grasses of the gravelly soils— 

‘¢ Where the furze has leave to wreathe 
Its dark prickles o’er the heath ; 
Where the grey-grown hawthorns spread 
Foliaged houses o’er one’s head, 
By the sporting axe untouch’d ; 
Where the oak-tree gnarl’d and notch’d 
Lifts its deep-moss’d furrow’d side 
In Nature’s grandeur—Nature’s pride.” 

2. Autumnal Hawk-bit (4. autumnilis).—Root-leaves linear, lan- 
ceolate, toothed, or pinnatifid, nearly smooth ; stalk branched, scaly, and 
thickened above ; involucre smooth or hairy: a variety occurs with smooth 
leaves, stalk mostly simple, and the involucre shaggy, with greenish-black 
hairs; and another with hairy leaves, branched stalk, and involucre with 
dark hairs; root perennial. This plant is not unfrequent in meadows and 
pastures, its deep yellow flowers expanding in August and September. They 

/  IL—17 


130 COMPOSIT Ai 


are succeeded by brownish-white pappus. The plant is tall and slender, the 
many-flowered stalk slightly hairy, two or three feet high, and swollen 
beneath the flowers. The two species of Apargia were included with Thrincia 
in the Linnean genus Leontodon. 


5. THRINCIA (Zhrincia). 

Hairy Thrincia (7. hirta).—Leaves all from the root, lanceolate, entire, 
or deeply toothed, bristly, or hairy, with forked or simple hairs ; stalks 
simple, hairy below ; root perennial. This plant is very frequent, from July 
to September, on heaths and downs, bearing a yellow flower head on each of 
its purplish, somewhat hairy stalks. It is from four to six inches high, with 
spreading rough leaves, more or less lobed. Mr. Babington mentions that its 
root is premorse—that is, it appears to have been bitten short. 


6. Cat’s-EAR (Hypochéris). 


1. Smooth Cat’s-ear (H. glabra).—Stem branched, leafy, smooth ; root- 
leaves oblong, lobed ; involucre smooth, equalling the florets ; root annual. 
The small yellow heads of this plant, scarcely longer than the involucre, are 
to be seen, from June to October, in gravelly soils; but the species is not 
frequent. The stem, which is a foot or more in height, is branched, and 
bears a few leaves. A variety (H. balbisii) is described with beaked fruits. 

2. Long-rooted Cat’s-ear (H. radicdia).—Leaves all from the root, 
pinnatifid, with the lobes pointing backwards, bristly ; stalks branched, 
smooth, with a few scales below the flowers. This plant sends its perennial 
roots so far down into the earth, that it is difficult of eradication. It isa 
common and troublesome plant on some soils, both on this account, and 
because its leaves, which spread horizontally, are so closely pressed to the 
earth as to prevent the growth of the grass. It is, however, more common 
on hedge-banks and waste places than on meadow lands. Swine are said to 
be very fond of its roots, and not only does this circumstance account for the 
name of the genus, but it is alluded to in some of the familiar names of 
various countries of Europe. The French call it Porcelle ; the Dutch Biggen- 
kruid ; the Germans, Saukraut ; the Spaniards, Hierba del alcon ; the Danes, 
Kongpeune. The large yellow flower-heads may be seen on their long 
branched flower-stalks during July and August. 

3. Spotted Cat’s-ear (H. maculdta).—Stem almost leafless, solitary, 
nearly smooth; leaves oblong, undivided, toothed, spotted on the upper 
surface ; involucres slightly bristly ; root perennial. This is a rare plant, 
occurring on some open downs of chalky or limestone districts in Suffolk, 
Cambridgeshire, and other counties. The stem is about a foot high, stout, 
and haying at its summit two or three large deep yellow heads, with two or 
three small scale-like bracts beneath them. The leaves are all from the root, 
and the plant blossoms in July and August. 


7. Letruce (Lactica). 
* Beak long, white ; keel of leaves prickly. 


1. Strong-scented or Acrid Lettuce (L. virdésw).—Leaves spreading, 
oblong, toothed, two-eared, and clasping the stem; stem leafy, branched 


1 ROUGH HAWKBIT 


Apargia hispida 
Z AUTUMNAL H 


4 SMOOTH CATS-EAR 
Hypocheris glabra 
LONG-ROOTED ¢c 
H radicata 
6 SPOTTED c 


A. autumnalis 
3 HAIRY THRINCIA : 


Thrintia hirta H.imacnlata 


PU tuk 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 131 


above ; heads in panicles ; beak as long as the black fruit ; root biennial. On 
some chalky soils this Lettuce may be seen putting forth its yellow heads 
from May to August. They are in loose panicles, and are very small in 
comparison with the large and numerous leaves. The stem is prickly, from 
two to four feet high, branched at the upper part, and having a few leaves 
scattered over it. The leaves about the root are oblong, or inversely egg- 
shaped, and very numerous. This Lettuce can hardly be called a common 
plant in England, and in Scotland it is very rare. It is not rendered 
attractive by any odour, grace, or beauty, and would by any but a botanist 
be passed by as an uninteresting weed. On some chalk cliffs it attains a 
gigantic size, as on those around Lydden Spout, near Dover. It grows there 
in such luxuriance as to give a peculiar feature to those steep precipices, 
being sometimes eight feet high. 

This Lettuce is found throughout Europe on hedges, walls, and _field- 
borders, and is also cultivated to a large extent for the milky juice which it 
yields, which, when dried, has the name of Lactucarium, and which, 2s Gerarde 
says, “hath a very strong and grievous smell of opium.” All our wild 
Lettuces, as well as the garden species, possess this bitter and narcotic juice 
in greater or less degree, and it has when dried a considerable resemblance to 
opium. If we make an incision in the stem either of this weed or of the 
garden Lettuce, just when it is beginning to flower, a milky juice exudes, 
which gradually becomes brown, and hardens into this substance. It may be 
used in cases in which the poppy is inadmissible ; and the Lactica virdsa has 
been largely grown at Brechin, in Forfar, as well as at some other places, for 
the pharmaceutical preparation. It is very important to select a soil well 
suited to the growth of this Lettuce. At Brechin the plants were reared in a 
valley opening to the south, where they sent up large and juicy stems. The 
milky juice which exudes on incision is suffered to harden in the sun until it 
becomes a thin cake, and when this is removed another incision is made in 
the stem, and often, when the plant is luxuriant, a third incision may safely 
be ventured on. Our climate is less favourable than some others for the 
growth of the plant, which, nevertheless, in many cases proves very pro- 
ductive. 

This narcotic juice may be obtained, also, from other species of the Lettuce, 
and the garden Lettuce (Lactica sativa) is the plant recognised by the London 
Pharmacopceia for supplying the substance. Dr. Christison remarks: ‘The 
London College, however, and many cultivators are wrong in restricting 
themselves to the garden Lettuce for the preparation of lactucariwm. From 
information communicated to me several years ago by Mr. Duncan, chemist 
and druggist, of Edinburgh, who has often made lactucarium on a large scale, 
it appears that the Lactiica virdsa yields a much larger quantity, and that the 
produce is of a superior quality. Nor is there any reason for dreading the 
narcotic properties of the wild Lettuce, the scientific name of which has given 
rise to an exaggerated notion of its activity. The results obtained by 
Mr. Duncan have since been confirmed by those of Schultz, in Germany, 
who found that a single plant of the garden Lettuce yields only seventeen 
grains of lactucarium on an average, while a plant of wild Lettuce yields no 
less than fifty-six grains. Mr. Duncan has made this observation also : 

17—2 


132 COMPOSIT At 


‘Although the milkiness of the juice increases till the very close of the time 
of flowering, viz. in the wild Lettuce, till the month of October in this climate, 
the value of the Jactucarium is deteriorated after the middle of the period of 
inflorescence ; for subsequently, while the juice becomes thicker, a material 
decrease takes place in the proportion of bitter extract contained in it.’” 

2. Prickly Lettuce (ZL. scaridla).—Leaves upright, arrow-shaped at the 
base, and clasping, deeply cut ; panicle leafy ; beak as long as the pale fruit ; 
root perennial. This species is rarely found in this country, but it grows on 
dry banks in some parts of Cambridgeshire and other counties. Its stem is 
leafy, from two to five feet high, bearing yellow flower-heads, with numerous 
heart-shaped bracts, in July and August. The plant is of paler colour than the 
last species, and the milky juice with which it abounds is of a somewhat less 
acrid nature. Many botanists believe that our garden Lettuce (L. sativa) is but 
an ameliorated form of this species, while other writers think that the Acrid 
Lettuce (L. virdsa) is the origin of our garden Lettuces. These plants have been 
now so long under culture that it is impossible to trace whence they were 
derived ; and it is remarkable that the Lettuce can be grown to as great per- 
fection in a warm as in a temperate climate, provided the soil is rich and well 
supplied with water. Hence the Lettuces of Paris and Rome are as good as 
ours, and the Hindoo dines from as sweet and large a vegetable as that which 
supplies our salad. One of the cultivated Lettuces doubtless was introduced 
from the Greek islands, as it retains its old name of Cos lettuce. 

The wild Prickly Lettuce, though a rare English plant, is plentiful in many 
parts of Europe. It is found on the hilly districts of Greece, and is probably 
the species referred to by Dioscorides. The ancients were well aware of the 
narcotic principles of this genus; for the Romans used the Lettuce both for 
salads and medicine, and the old poets prescribed a bed of Lettuce for the 
sleepless. Pliny, as translated by Dr. Holland, says: ‘“ Yet is there another 
distincte kinde of the black Lettuce, which for the plentie that it yieldeth of 
a milkie white juice, procuring drowsinesse, is termed meconis ; although all 
of them are thought to cause sleepe. In old times, our ancestors knew no 
other lettuce in Italy but this alone, and therefore it took the name of the 
Latins, Lactica.” Anyone who observes his own sensations after eating 
plentifully of a lettuce salad will find that it disposes him to sleep if night is 
advancing ; while, if taken at a part of the day when we are unaccustomed to 
sleep, it soothes and calms the mind, and allays nervous irritability. As 
Pope says, 

“If your wish be rest, 
Lettuce and cowslip wine, probatwm est.” 
When we indulge freely, indeed, in a lettuce salad, we might be told that we 
were incipient opium-eaters ; but, happily, we are not likely at one meal to 
take so large a portion of the lactucarium as would affect the brain to anything 
like intoxication. 

Sir John Lubbock states that, when growing in sunny situations, the 
leaves of this species have a tendency to point north and south. 

The Lettuce appears to have been planted in our garden early, but it was 
long before its growth became frequent. ‘Turner mentions it in 1652 asa 
vegetable which was well known; but in the account of the Privy Purse 


1 STRONG SCENTED LETTUCE 3 LEAST LETTUCE 


Lactuca virosa L. salifna 
2 PRICKLY L + TVY LEAVED IL 
L. scariola L murals 


Pl, 112, 


dies 


Hay) 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 133 


expenses of Henry VIII. in 1530 we find that the gardener at York Place 

received a reward for “bringing luttuze and cherries to Hampton Court.” 

Gerarde in 1597 mentions eight varieties as being then in cultivation. 
Spenser speaks of 


“Cold lettuce and refreshing rosmarine.” 


Our wild Lettuces are never now cultivated for food, and it would need a 
long course of culture ere their acrid principles could be removed. The 
varieties, L. sativa, crispa, perénnis, quercina, and a few others, are those 
commonly reared in the kitchen garden. 

3. Least Lettuce (L. saligna).—Upper leaves narrow, entire, pointed, 
arrow-shaped at the base ; lower leaves pinnatifid ; beak twice as long as the 
fruit; root biennial. This rare plant is found chiefly in the south-eastern 
parts of England, on chalky places near the sea, or in salt marshes. It has a 
slender wavy stem, slightly branched, and about two feet high; and the 
plant has at first sight somewhat the appearance of a small osier: hence its 
name. It bears, in July and August, small heads of yellow flowers in alter- 
nate tufts, forming long clusters, which are so dense as to resemble spikes. 


* * Beak short ; keel of leaves smooth. 


4. Ivy-leaved Lettuce (L. murdlis).—Leaves pinnatifid, somewhat lyre- 
shaped, and toothed; the terminal lobe largest and angled; beak much 
shorter than the fruit ; root perennial. This is the most common of our wild 
Lettuces, and is not unfrequent in woods or on old walls. It is a slender 
plant, having a stem one or two feet high, with small yellow heads, each of 
which has five regular florets, so that it resembles a simple flower of five 
petals. It is in blossom from June to August. The stalks of the clusters 
grow in a very angular direction, and the fruit is black. It has less narcotic 
principle in its juices than either of the other species. 

The French call the Lettuce La Laitue, the Germans Der Salat. It is the 
Salade of the Dutch, the Lattuga of the Italians, and the Lechuga of the 
Spaniards. The greater number of the Lettuce family grow wild in Europe, 
a lesser number in Asia and Africa, very few in America, and none in the 
southern hemisphere. 


8. BLUE SOW-THISTLE (Mulgédium). 


Alpine Blue Sow-thistle (JZ. alpinum).—Leaves lyre-shaped, arrow- 
shaped at the base ; terminal lobe very large, triangular, halberd-shaped, and 
acute ; stem unbranched ; heads of flowers in racemes; bracts, flower-stalks, 
and involucres with glandular hairs ; fruit ribbed. Few of our native lovers 
of flowers ever look upon this beautiful plant, save in the herbarium of one 
who has wandered among the rare and lovely blossoms which grow on the 
highland heights of North Britain. A few spots near rivulets in Forfar and 
Aberdeen are its only British localities ; but in some countries at the north 
of Europe it is a frequent plant. In Lapland, where it grows among the 
trees on the slopes of mountains, it is called Terja, and its milky stem is 
peeled off and eaten raw by the people of those regions. It is intensely 
bitter, but the Laplanders, accustomed to eat it from childhood, relish it 
exceedingly. Some of them, however, told Linnzus, that when first they 


134 COMPOSIT Ai 


began using it as food, they found its bitterness very unpleasant. It is only 
while young that the plant can be eaten, for as soon as the flowers expand, 
the stalk becomes hard and woody. It is about three feet high, and the 
flowers, which appear in July and August, are rich purplish-blue. Some 
writers term it Sonchus alpinus, or S. ceruleus ; others Lactuca alpina. 


9. SOW-THISTLE (Sénchus). 


1. Tall Marsh Sow-thistle (S. palistris).—Leaves narrow, lanccolate, 
clasping the stem with arrow-shaped ears, lower ones pinnatifid with few 
segments, upper ones entire; stem without branches; root perennial. This 
large Sow-thistle is very rare. It has been found in marshes in Cambridge, 
Essex, Huntingdonshire, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk, but it is now almost 
extinct in this country. It bears, in August and September, pale yellow 
heads, and as its stem is often six feet high, the plant is very conspicuous on 
the flat green lands where it grows. The involucre of the flower is covered 
with glandular hairs which serve to entrap small creeping insects that seek 
to rob the flowers of their honey and pollen, without rendering service in 
return. 

2. Corn Sow-thistle, Milk-thistle (S. arvénsis).—Leaves oblong, more 
or less pinnatifid or entire, toothed, often prickly, the upper ones clasping | 
the stem ; heads somewhat corymbose, usually covered, as are the flowering 
stems, with glandular bristles ; involucres smooth ; root creeping. Those who 
stray into the harvest fields of August can hardly have failed to observe 
among the brown corn the large yellow, star-like blossoms of this handsome 
plant. Each flower is as large as a half-crown piece, and grows on a slender 
stem which overtops the wheat, and is sometimes even four feet high, adding 
much to the beauty of the field. 


‘*Stars they are wherein we read our history, 
As astrologers and seers of eld ; 
Yet not wrapp’d about with awful mystery, 
Like the burning stars which they beheld. 


*¢ Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, 
God hath written in the stars above ; 
But not less in the bright flow’rets under us 
Stands the revelation of His love. 


“ Bright and glorious is that revelation 
Written over this great world of ours ! 
Making evident our own creation, 
In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.” 


This flower well deserves its name of arvénsis, as it grows much on culti- 
vated lands, but it is also found on field borders and other waste places, where 
it sometimes attains a great size. 

3. Common Annual Sow-thistle (S. olerdccus).— Leaves undivided or 
pinnatifid, toothed, clasping, with two spreading arrow-shaped ears, lower 
ones stalked ; stem branched ; fruit ribbed lengthwise and wrinkled ; heads of 
flowers somewhat umbellate ; involucres smooth ; root annual. ‘This plant is 
well known to the cultivator-of a garden, for it is a frequent intruder on his 
beds. It has bright glossy, often prickly leaves, their edges in one variety 
divided, in the other entire, and all, as well as the stem, so full of milky 


| BLUE SOW-THISTLE 3 CORN S$ 


Mul gedinm alpinum . S. arvensis 
2 SOW THISTLE “F COMMON ANNUAL 5S Ab 
Sonchus palustris S, oleraceus 


7 SHARP FRINGED ANNUAL Ss: T 


S.asper 


Pats, 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 135 


juice, that its name of Milk-thistle is not inappropriate. Many a ramble by 
field border and sunny bank does the schoolboy take to gather a basket of 
soft juicy “ Milkies” for his rabbit ; while the timid wild hare will creep 
through garden hedge, before its owner has waked up to the dawn, and will 
there take a breakfast on the Sow-thistle. Horses are not fond of the plant ; 
but it is eaten by sheep and goats, and is so favourite a food with swine, that 
their preference is indicated not alone by our familiar name, but by that of some 
other European lands. The Germans call it Saudistel, and also Hasenkohl ; the 
French term the plant Le Laiteron; the Italians, Sonco ; the Spaniards, Cerraja ; 
the Dutch, Haazenlatuw ; and it is known by the Russian peasant as the 
Tschistotel. It is common not only in Europe, but in some parts of Africa ; 
and Kalm says it grows wild near every farmhouse at the Cape of Good 
Hope, and is used by the people there in making salves. It has also become 
a very frequent plant in New Zealand, either this or the Corn species flourish- 
ing in abundance, with docks and poppies, among the fields of waving corn 
—little welcomed by the farmer who is intent on cultivating that fertile soil, 
though doubtless often, as Colonel Mundy says, reminding the traveller very 
pleasantly of “weedy, seedy Old England.” Remarking on the luxuriant 
growth of several British weeds, as the docks and chickweeds, which adorn 
the roadsides, this author says: “I rather think Cook found the Sow- 
thistle here. At any rate, this humble weed is in New Zealand pro- 
moted to an esculent, the Maoris making of it a sort of salad.” He adds 
that it is invaluable to the birds, especially to the parrot tribes, hundreds of 
which, “of beauteous dyes but odious accents,” he saw fluttering and feeding 
on its filmy tops. 

This Sow-thistle has similar properties to the succory and dandelion. Its 
leaves are much eaten by the peasantry of France and Germany, as salad, 
and are in many countries of Europe boiled for the table. It is said that, 
prepared in the way of spinach, they furnish a dish of vegetables superior to 
any green plant in common use. 

4, Sharp-fringed Annual Sow-thistle (S. dsper).—Leaves undivided 
or pinnatifid, sharply toothed, clasping, with rounded ears; fruit ribbed 
lengthwise, smooth ; stem branched ; heads of flowers somewhat umbellate ; 
involucres smooth ; root annual. This plant is probably a variety or sub- . 
species of the common Sow-thistle, which it much resembles in its general 
appearance. It differs chiefly in having more crisped leaves, and in its fruit 
being destitute of wrinkles. Its stem is two or three feet high, and its flowers, 
which expand during the summer months, are yellow. It occurs, also, in 
gardens, fields, and waste places. 


10. HAWKk’S-BEARD (Crépis). 
/] 


1. Smooth Hawk’s-beard (C. virens).—Leaves smooth, pinnatifid, 
with the lobes pointing backwards, the upper ones narrow, arrow-shaped at 
the base, and clasping the stem, remotely toothed, and with flat margins ; 
fruit shorter than the pappus, oblong, with smooth ribs; root annual. ‘This 
plant bears numerous little yellow heads, about half an inch across, from July 
to September, and is very common on waste ground or the cottage roof. It 


136 COMPOSIT At 


varies very much in height, being in some cases but a few inches, in others 
more than two feet high. 

2. Rough Hawk’s-beard (C. biénnis).—Leaves rough, pinnatifid, with 
the lobes pointing backwards, uppermost lanceolate, clasping and. toothed ; 
involucre downy, outer scales very narrow and lax ; fruit oblong, with smooth 
ribs, longer than the pappus; root biennial. This plant is very rare, but it 
occurs on dry pastures in the mid and eastern counties of England, as well 
as in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen and Dublin. The flowers are larger 
than those of the last species, and the pappus which succeeds them is white 
as snow. ‘The stems are from two to four feet high, and furrowed, and the 
plant blossoms in June and July. 

3. Small-flowered Hawk’s-beard (C. piilchra).—Leaves downy, 
toothed, those from the root oblong, and tapering into a foot-stalk, the rest 
arrow-shaped and clasping; panicle spreading; fruit about as long as the 
pappus, faintly marked with lines. This plant has small yellow flowers on 
an erect and downy stem. It was said to have been discovered by G. Don, 
on the Hills of Turin and Pitsandy, near Forfar, but no other botanist has 
ever found it there. 

4. Succory-leaved Hawk’s-beard (C. swucisefélia).—Leaves oblong, 
blunt, nearly entire and smooth, lower ones narrowing into a foot-stalk, upper 
ones sessile and somewhat clasping ; flower-stalks and involucres glandular 
and hairy; fruit as long as the pappus, distinctly marked with lines ; root 
perennial. This is a rare plant of mountain woods, found only in Scotland 
and the north of England: it bears its few and small yellow flowers in July 
and August. 

5. Marsh Hawk’s-beard (C. paluddésa).—Leaves smooth, lower ones 
pinnatifid, with the lobes pointing backwards, tapering into a stalk, upper 
ones narrow, heart-shaped at the base, and clasping the stem; fruit marked 
with lines; root perennial. This is not an unfrequent species in damp woods 
in the northern half of the kingdom, flowering from July to September. 
Though an undoubted Crepis, it has the pappus of a Hieraciwm. 


11. BorxuausiA (Borkhaisia). 


1. Stinking Borkhausia (B. feétida).—Leaves hairy, upper ones lanceo- 
late, lower ones pinnatifid, their segments turning backwards ; unexpanded 
heads drooping ; involucres hairy and downy ; root biennial. This is a rare 
plant of dry chalky lands from Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to Kent and 
Sussex. Its name is not undeserved ; for although, when at a distance, the 
plant has a faint odour of bitter almonds, yet, when held in the hand for a 
minute, the scent is most disgusting. The leaves are milky and very bitter. 
The stem is spreading, and has long stalks, each bearing a solitary yellow 
flower head, which is reddish externally. 

2. Smaller Rough Borkhausia (B. tarazxacifélia).—Leaves pinnatifid, 
mostly with their segments pointing backwards, sessile or stalked ; heads of 
flowers erect ; involucre bristly and downy, outer scales membranaceous ; 
bracts narrow ; root biennial. This is not a common plant, being found in 
chalky pastures, chiefly south of Yorkshire. The yellow flowers expand in 
June and July. 


1 SMOOTH HAWK BEARD a) SMALL FLOWEREI Ei 


Crepis vireus pulchra 
Z ROUGH H 4 SUCCORY LEAVEI H 
C. biemms C. snecisefolia 


MARSH H 


Cc paludo sa 


A Th ae, 
Wy Pn ? 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 137 


3. Bristly Borkhausia (B. sefosa).—This plant, found sometimes in 
clover-fields, has no claim to be considered British. It is a native of Middle 
and Southern Europe, somewhat similar to B. taraxacifolia, but the branched 
stem is furnished with clasping leaves. 


12. DANDELION (Leédntodon). 


Common Dandelion (L. tardxacum).—Leaves all from the root, pin- 
natifid, with the lobes pointing backwards ; flower-stalks hollow, smooth, 
leafless, and bearing a single head; outer scales of the involucre turning 
downwards ; pappus stalked and white; root perennial. If there are some 
plants which we value for their rareness, because we have sought them long 
or fetched them from afar, so there are others which delight us by their very 
commonness, and which gladden us by their gleaming thousands. Often 
they recall some touching scene of childhood—of early homes or friends. 
Such are the daisy and Dandelion, which have these associated charms, inde- 
pendently of that which belongs to their own beauty of form or hue. Many 
of us would, under similar circumstances, feel as the author of ‘Our 
Antipodes” did when in the Botanic Garden of Sydney. ‘Some of the 
producers,” he says, “evince their fealty to their native land by exhibiting 
specimens of her weeds, or, more properly, field flowers, strangers to the 
colony, and difficult to rear in this climate. I found myself adoring a butter- 
cup, idolising a daisy, and ardently coveting the possession of a glorious 
Dandelion, which, classically labelled ‘ Leontodon tardxacum,’ occupied one of 
the high places of the exhibition, and was treated as an illustrious foreigner.” 
A lowly plant it is with us, trodden over by the countryman as he passes 
through the field, or pressed down by the feet of little gladsome children, on 
pasture land or sunny bank; a treasure yet to them—a treasure to all who 
truly love flowers. It scorns no grassy spot as unworthy of its beauty, from 
church tower or garden wall, to the shadowy woods or the river’s brink—to 
the pebbly beach, or the crevice of the pavement. It is often the earliest 
flower of the green mead, sending out a stray blossom even in February, and 
assembling in multitudes by April and May. 


‘*¥’en when old Winter leaves his plashy slough, 
The Dandelions, like to suns, will bloom, 
Beside some bank or hillock creeping low, 
Though each too often meets an early doom.” 


What a wealth to country children are the Dandelions with their hollow 
stalks, linked into chains day after day with untiring eagerness, and with the 
white downy balls, 


‘The schoolboy’s clock in every town,” 


which come as the flowers fall away, and which sometimes whiten the meadow 
by their profusion, till a strong gust arises and scatters them far and wide! 
Away they float, each white plume bearing onwards the seed at its base, so 
beautifully balanced that its motion is most graceful, and its destined place 
in the soil most surely reached. All who notice the exquisite arrangement of 
IL—18 


138 COMPOSIT A 


this downy plume and seed, might learn the pious lesson taught by Martin 
Tupper :— 
‘* And doubtless the sailing of a cloud hath Providence to its pilot, 

Doubtless the root of an oak is gnarl’d for a special purpose ; 

The foreknown station of a rush is as fixed as the station of a king, 

And chaff from the hand of the winnower steer’d as the stars in their courses.” 

Besides the uses of the Dandelion to child, bee, and butterfly, besides the 

pleasant thoughts which it may bring to the philosopher, the Dandelion has 
various important economic uses. ‘The leaves are grown in some Continental 
countries, and, after being blanched, are eaten in salads ; nor is the bitterness 
which exists in the green leaf, and which even blanching cannot wholly 
remove, disagreeable to all palates. The peasants about Gottingen, besides 
mingling the leaves with their dish of lettuce and sorrel, have long been 
accustomed to roast the roots as a substitute for coffee ; and when on one 
occasion a swarm of locusts had destroyed the harvest in the Island of 
Minorca, many of the inhabitants were supported for a time by the roots 
and foliage of this plant. In some parts of Germany the roots are boiled for 
the table, and the French eat them, when sliced, in salads. Many writers 
think that the substitution of this root for coffee is rather advantageous than 
otherwise. A physician of Edinburgh said of the Dandelion: ‘It possesses 
all the fine flavour and exhilarating properties of coffee, without any of its 
deleterious effects. The plant being of a soporific nature, coffee made from 
it, when drunk at night, produces a tendency to sleep, instead of exciting 
wakefulness, and may be safely used as a cheap and wholesome substitute 
for the Arabian berry, being equal in substance and flavour to the best Mocha 
coffee.” Mrs. Moodie, in her work on Canadian life, remarks that she had 
read this opinion previously to leaving England ; and that one day, observing 
a large number of Dandelion roots in some land which belonged to their 
farm, she was reminded of it, and resolved to make the experiment. She 
therefore carefully washed the roots, without depriving them of the fine 
brown skin which covers them, and in which the aromatic flavour exists. 
She observed, while roasting them, that the odour so nearly resembled 
that of roasted coffee, that it might have been taken for it. When, by this 
process, the pieces of Dandelion-root had acquired the brownness of coffee, 
they were ground and prepared in the usual way for the morning meal, and 
proved very superior to the coffee which she had been able to procure from 
the stores in the neighbourhood. “For years,” adds Mrs. Moodie, “we used 
no other article; and my Indian friends who frequented the house gladly 
adopted the root, and made me show them the whole process of manufac- 
turing it into coffee. Experience has taught me that the root of the 
Dandelion is not so good when applied to this purpose in spring as it is in 
the fall. I tried it in the spring; but the juice of the plant having con- 
tributed to the production of leaves and flowers, was weak, and destitute of 
the fine bitter flavour of coffee.” She adds, that the roots dried in the sun 
will keep for years, and also that the plant cultivated in trenches may be, 
by being covered with straw, blanched to a beautiful cream-colour, and will 
make a salad equal to endive. In many parts of the United States, particu- 
larly in new districts where vegetables are scarce, it is used, early in the 


1 STINKING BORKHAUSTA 
Borkhansia foetida B. taraxaeifolia 
COMMON DANDELION 
Leontodon taraxacuimm 


2 SMALL ROTTGH' B 


PUSS: 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 139 


spring, as a boiled vegetable ; and in some of the townships the settlers boil 
the young leaves and mingle them with hops, and thus produce a good home- 
brewed beer. 

Of the medicinal virtues of the Dandelion there can be no doubt, for it 
is a good tonic. Whether, as the old writers said, he who was “ drawing to 
a consumption ” would find a “ wonderful help” from its use, we cannot tell, 
nor has the distilled water, which they directed to be drunk in pestilential 
fevers, received any confirmation of its value among modern physicians. It 
is still, however, recommended for those who have affections of the liver; 
and many persons who have suffered in health from a long residence in hot 
climates have experienced great relief by taking its decoction. We have 
seen the complexion wonderfully improved by dandelion tea; but though 
its use could not be attended with any danger, yet some knowledge of 
disease is desirable in the use of any medicine, whether vegetable or 
mineral. 

The Dandelion is a troublesome plant of the pasture, both because of its 
profusion of seeds, and because every inch of its root-stock forms buds and 
fibres, and thus constitutes a new plant, while both sheep and cows seem to 
dislike its foliage. The English name for the plant is a corruption of the 
French Dent-de-lion, and was given because of its leaves, the lobes of which 
were fancied to resemble the tooth of the lion. It is general in the pastures 
of Europe, and throughout the temperate and cold regions of the earth. 
James Russell Lowell’s verses to it have probably caused many to examine 
the flower who had formerly passed it as unworthy of attention. 

‘** Dear common flower that grow’st beside the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold— 
First pledge of blithesome May 
Which children pluck, and full of pride uphold, 
High-hearted buccaneers, o’erjoy’d that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found, 
Which not the rich earth’s ample round 


May match in wealth—thou art more dear to me 
Than all the prouder summer blooms may be. 


‘* Gold such as thine ne’er drew the Spanish prow 
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 

Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
Of age to rob the lover’s heart of ease ; 

‘Tis the spring’s largess which she scatters now 
To rich and poor alike with lavish hand, 
Though most hearts never understand 

To take it at God’s value, and pass by 

The open’d wealth with unrewarded eye.” 


13. HAWKWEED (Hierdcium). 


This genus is one of a most perplexing character, our most skilful botanists 
differing as to the exact number of species which it contains. The species 
here described are, however, probably all which can be considered as truly 
indigenous to this country. Many others are either doubtful natives, or are 
likely to prove varieties of the species enumerated in this list. The student, 
however, intent on closely investigating the minute characteristics of all the 
plants of this troublesome genus, will find the Hawkweeds, with all their 
varieties, and with reference to the synonyms and opinions of various British 

18—2 


149 COMPOSIT At 


and foreign botanists, fully described and stated in Backhouse’s “ Monograph 
of the British Hieracia ” (1856), ‘‘The British Flora” of Sir William Jackson 
Hooker and Dr. Arnott (1860), and ‘‘The Manual of Botany” of Mr. 
Babington (1881). Hooker and Arnott describe thirty-three species of 
Hawkweed, and Mr. Babington enumerates thirty species. But Sir J. D. 
Hooker (‘‘Student’s Flora”), assisted by Mr. J. G. Baker, of Kew, has 
reduced this number to ten, and expresses the belief of nine of these “ that 
there are no characters whereby the nine forms ... can be more than 
approximately defined.” The eight forms described in this work, though not 
based upon Hooker and Baker, largely agree with them. 


* Plants producing scions. 


1. Common Mouse-ear Hawkweed (JZ. pilosélla)—Leaves oblong or 
lanceolate, hairy on both sides, white with down beneath; stem single- 
headed, leafless ; scions creeping ; leaves entire, hairy ; root perennial. This 
Hawkweed is easily distinguished from all the other native species by its 
uncut leaves, together with its creeping scions. It is a common and very 
pretty flower, of a much paler yellow than most of the species, and truly 
lemon-coloured ; the florets of the ray have usually red lines on the outside, 
and the young unfolded or half-blown flowers look very beautiful in their 
rich crimson tint. The scions are mostly slender and rooting, lying close to 
the surface of the soil ; and the leaves, often of a greyish-green colour, are 
paler beneath. The plant g grows on sunny banks, dry heaths, and pastures, 
often studding the short grass of the sea-cliff or that of the garden lawn with 
its blossoms, which are ee than a shilling-piece, and appear from May to 
August. The herb was fmt in much repute for its supposed medicinal 
properties. ‘The juice thereof taken in wine,” says an old writer, ‘‘or the 
decoction drank, helpeth the jaundice, although of long continuance, if drank 
night and morning ;” but the herbalist adds, that all other liquid must be 
abstained from for some hours after. It appears, too, to be one of the plants 
used by the alchemists in their preparations; for this author says, “The 
moon owns this herbe also, and though authors cry out upon alchemists for 
attempting to fix quicksilver by this herbe and moonwort, a Roman would 
not have judged a thing by success ; if it be fixed at all, it is fixed by lunar 
influence.” 

There is another Hawkweed, quite distinct from all other species, but 
which, though often found on hills and in woods, both in England and Scot- 
land, is not a truly wild plant, having been wafted to these spots from some 
neighbouring garden. It is the Orange Hawkweed (H. aurantidcum). 'The 
hairs on the stem and involucre are black at the base, and intermingled with 
black gland-tipped hairs. These suggested the familiar name of Grim the 
Collier, by which the species is often called ; and it is not improbable that 
this name alluded to a character in an old play, once very popular in England. 
The plant blossoms in June and July, and the flower is very handsome, often 
cultivated in gardens, and varying very much in depth of colour in different 
situations, some flowers being red or deep orange, or more rarely of a pale 
yellow colour, with dark-brown styles. The plant is sometimes called by 
gardeners Golden Mouse-ear. It sends out creeping scions, and the flower- 


\ 
DS 
WN, 


4 BLACK HEADED A 
HH. nigrescens 


i COMMON MOUSE-EAR HAWKWEED 
Hieracrum pilosella 
Zz ORANGE H Bey JEAToes: EE 
H. aurantiacum H. palhdvo 
3 ALPINE EH, 6 WALI H 
H. alpinum A. mourornmm 
7 woop H. 


H. sylvaticum 


Pi. 116. 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 141 


stalk is one or two feet high. It grows wild in France, Switzerland, Austria, 
and Silesia. 
* * Plants without scions. 


2. Alpine Hawkweed (ZH. alpinum).—Stem leafless or with a few 
leaves, hairy; leaves hairy, sometimes with glands; lower leaves mostly 
stalked, upper mostly sessile; flowers one or two, terminal, and drooping 
before expansion ; involucre much but loosely imbricated, and covered with 
long brownish or grey silky hairs, the scales mostly spreading, flowers droop- 
ing before expansion ; root perennial. This plant grows on lofty cliffs of our 
mountainous regions, in North Wales and Westmoreland to Sutherland. Its 
stem is from four inches to a foot high, sometimes branched ; and the large 
bright yellow flower is to be seen in July and August. The leaves are some- 
times oval, and sometimes very long and narrow, tapering at the base ; in the 
latter case they are sometimes six or seven inches in length. <A plant very 
nearly allied to this, and found in similar situations from York to Sutherland, 
is by some botanists described as the Black-headed Hawkweed (H. nigréscens). 
Its involucre is much darker than that of H. alpinum, being covered with 
numerous black hairs or bristles, often mixed with longer whitish hairs arising 
from a black base. It was also called H. pulmondrium (Lungwort Hawk- 
weed), and believed, though without any reason, to be useful in pulmonary 
disease. 

3. Wall Hawkweed (H. murvrum).—Stem many-flowered, with a single 
leaf, branched above ; root-leaves numerous, stalked, rounded or heart-shaped 
at the base, somewhat hairy ; flower-stalks and involucre with white down, 
and usually with black hairs ; inner scales of the involucre suddenly tapering 
to a point; root perennial. This is a common species, growing on rocks, 
walls, and cottage-roofs, and bearing its small yellow flowers in July and 
August. Its leaves are often purplish at the back ; its size is very variable, 
the stem being from twelve to eighteen inches high, and bearing four or five 
large yellow heads. ‘The plant described as the Pale Hawkweed (H. pallidum) 
is probably but another form of this species. The heads of flowers do not 
droop before expansion ; the foliage is thinner, and pale beneath; but it is 
doubtful if these peculiarities are permanent. 

4. Wood Hawkweed (ZZ. sylvdticum).—Stem usually with a few leaves, 
many-flowered, slightly hairy; leaves egg-shaped, somewhat lanceolate, 
toothed, with the teeth pointing upwards, rather hairy ; root-leaves usually 
tapering into a foot-stalk ; stem-leaves either stalked or sessile ; flower-stalks 
somewhat downy, in some cases having black hairs mixed with the down; 
involucre hoary with down ; root perennial. This is one of our commonest 
Hawkweeds, being found in mountain woods, and on banks and bushy places. 
It is a very variable plant, both in size and appearance. The stem is from 
twelve to eighteen inches high, and the large bright yellow flowers appear in 
August and September. In one variety the leaves are either uniformly green 
or purplish, or glaucous beneath, the root-leaves remaining till the time of 
flowering. In a form described by some writers as H. maculdtum, the leaves 
are spotted with dark purple blotches, and the root-leaves wither before the 
flowers expand. 


142 COMPOSIT At 


5. Honey-wort Hawkweed (H. cerinthdides).—Stem with few leaves, 
hairy, with a corymb of flowers at the top ; leaves hairy, those from root oblong- 
lanceolate, acute, rather glaucous ; stem-leaves egg-shaped, more or less clasp- 
ing the stem, the upper part of the flower-stalks downy with hairs from a 
black base, mixed with bristles ; involucre inflated, clothed with black hairs, 
mixed with whitish ones from a black base ; scales pointed ; root perennial. 
This species has large, almost globose, yellow heads in August, and is found 
on mountain rocks from Yorkshire to Orkney. 

6. Rough-bordered Hawkweed (i. prenanthoides).—Stem leafy, un- 
branched, hairy ; panicle of flowers somewhat corymbose ; leaves toothed or 
entire, netted and glaucous beneath, lower ones narrowed into an eared clasp- 
ing leaf-stalk, upper leaves lanceolate, heart-shaped, and clasping ; flower- 
stalks and involucres rough with hairs and black bristles ; outer scales few, 
and much smaller than the inner ones; fruit pale brown, and smooth ; root 
perennial. This is a rare species, with similar range to the last-named ; it 
has numerous small yellow flower-heads in July and August. 

7. Shrubby Broad-leaved Hawkweed (i. bloréale).—Stem erect, 
leafy, rough, or hairy, either panicled or corymbose at top; leaves egg- 
shaped or lanceolate, upper ones broad, sessile, scarcely clasping, lower ones 
tapering into a foot-stalk ; involucres with blackish scales pressed closely 
down ; fruit sughtly rough, and brown or red; root perennial. This is a 
very variable plant, bearing its yellow flowers in August and September. It 
is not unfrequent in woods and on banks. A plant with all the leaves 
narrowed at the base, very nearly allied to this, and probably a variety of it, 
is found in mountainous districts, and is described by some writers as the 
Rigid-stemmed Hawkweed (H rigidum). This has a smooth, solid stem ; and 
a plant scarcely differing from it, but having a rough, hollow stem, and an 
involucre which becomes, after flowering, narrowed in the middle, is by some 
botanists termed H. tridentdtum. 

8. Narrow-leaved Hawkweed (H. wibelldtum).—Stem erect, simple, 
corymbose, somewhat umbellate at the summit, leafy and rigid; leaves 
oblong-lanceolate or very narrow, toothed or entire, lower ones narrowed at 
the base, upper sessile, acute, or rounded at the base ; flower-stalks and some- 
times involucres downy, but not hairy; scales blunt, with points turning 
backwards ; root perennial. In one variety of this the leaves are all narrowed 
at the base; in a second, which is found at Dunkerran, County Kerry, in 
Ireland, the whole plant is much larger, and the leaves broader and egg- 
shaped at the base. ‘This is not an unfrequent plant in our woods. Its stem 
is remarkably upright, two or three feet high, unbranched, and having an 
almost umbellate tuft of large yellow flowers in August and September. It 
is used in Sweden to dye yarn of a yellow colour. Dr. George Johnston 
observes: “It isremarkable that in the greater number of these plants some 
insect deposits its eggs near the summit, by which an oval or globular 
tumour is produced, and a more complete umbellate appearance given to the 
flower.” 

The Hawkweeds were prescribed for various maladies, and esteemed very 
efficacious against the bites of serpents. The old notion, that by means of 
these plants the hawks strengthened their vision, probably gave them some 


%, 


A ieee 4 


QP 


1 HONEY WORT HAWHMWEED . 3 SHRUBBY-BROAD-LEAVED H 
Hieracinm cermthodes H . boreale 

Z ROUGH-BORDERED 4H 4 . NARROW-LEAVED 4H, 
H .prenanthoides H.umbellatain 


belle 


— 


ee ee, ee ee 


= 


ew 


= 


ae eee ~ 


ve 


3 


ae cr 


ee 7 bak ; 
aa Y 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 143 


importance in days when falconry was practised. The Greeks, apparently 
from this opinion, gave the Hawkweed the name of Accipitrina, and hence the 
English Hawkweed, as well as the French Epervitre and Herbe & Epervier. 
The Germans also call it Habichtskraut; the Dutch, Haviksruid ; and the 
Spaniards and Portuguese term it Hzeracto. Coles, in his “ History of Plants,” 
written in 1657, says: “I shall treat of this plant as appropriated to the 
eyes”; and Dale tells us that taken inwardly the Hawkweed sharpens the 
sight, and expels black bile. 


14. NIPPLE-wort (Ldpsana). 


1. Common Nipple-wort (L. commiimnis).—Leaves stalked, toothed, 
heart-shaped at the base; stem branched ; flower-heads numerous; pappus 
none ; root annual. This is a very common plant in July and August by 
hedges and roadsides, offering little to attract in its pale yellow heads, which 
are very small in proportion to the size of the plant. It is generally two or 
three feet high, with many heads each about the size of a threepenny piece, 
and leaves of very different forms on different parts of the plant. The 
upper ones are either entire or simply toothed, the lower ones more or less 
cut, and having several small lobes running down the leaf-stalks. This plant 
is sometimes called Swine’s-cress, and Succory Dock-cress ; and the young 
spring leaves, which have somewhat the flavour of radishes, are eaten in 
Turkey among salad herbs. The foliage in a warmer climate loses probably 
some of its bitterness, as it would hardly be relished in its uncooked state in 
our country, though in some parts of England it is boiled by the peasantry. 
It is also used medicinally in villages. The French call it Za Lampsane 
commune, and the Germans Der Rainkohl ; the Spaniards term it Lampsana ; 
and the Dutch, Akkernies. 

2. Dwarf Nipple-wort (L. pusilla).—Flower-stalk branched, very thick, 
and hollow at the upper part ; leaves oblong, somewhat egg-shaped, toothed ; 
pappus a short entire leathery border; root annual. This is a rare species, 
occurring in some cultivated lands in the east of England and Scotland, and 
having, in July and August, small yellow flowers on leafless stalks, which 
swell and become hollow upwards. It is seldom more than six inches high. 
Also known as Arnoseris pusilla, and Swine’s Succory. 


15. Succory (Cichérium). 


Wild Succory (C. intybus).—Heads of flowers sessile, axillary, in pairs ; 
lower leaves toothed, with their segments pointing backwards, hairy on the 
back of the vein, upper ones clasping, oblong or lanceolate, entire; stem 
erect, branched ; root perennial. This beautiful plant is frequently to be met 
with wherever the soil is light, gravelly, or chalky. In the harvest field its 
tough stems cause much trouble, and it clusters in quantities on field-borders 
or hedge-banks by the roadside, meriting well its pretty old German name, 
which signifies keeper of the ways. It is a somewhat ragged, shaggy-looking 
plant, even when in fullest beauty, for its large flowers, blue as the sky, 
wither away one by one, and remain attached to the stems while the young 
buds are yet expanding. The blue star-like head is as large as a dandelion, 
but not so full of florets, and it grows close to the stem, which is from one 


144 COMPOSIT Ai 


to three feet high. The landscape is just at that season rich with lovely 
flowers :— 


‘* Bursting like some snow-flake from the emerald hedges 

Bindweeds out profusely throw their petals white, 

Nightshade flowers with centred gold, and wings of purple edges, 
Mix with gay convolvuli, and vetches red and bright : 

Blue blooms the Succory, each bud than sapphire brighter, 
Purple-spiked wild thyme, in amethystine pride, 

Scatters aromatic scents, of bees the sweet inviter, 
While topaz-like the agrimony’s columns rise beside.” 


This Succory grows wild, more or less, in all the countries of Europe. In 
France it is called Chicorée ; in Germany, Cichorie ; and in Holland, Sukerey. 
The Italians call it Cicorta ; the Spaniards, Achicoria ; the Russians, Zikorifa. 
De Theis remarks upon its name, that Bodeus, Linnzeus, and others have 
derived it from the Greek words, ‘‘to come,” and “ field”; that is to say, a 
plant which grows wild in the field—or everywhere—but that this etymology 
is over-strained. It is far more natural, he says, to suppose that the Egyptians, 
who used this plant in great quantities, would have communicated to the 
Greeks, along with the manner of preparing it, its Egyptian name, which 
appears from Forskhal to be Chicowryeh. Pliny observed that the Chicory 
was a very important plant in Egypt, and it is stated that at the present 
day this and some very similar plants constitute half the food of the Egyptians. 
In the same manner, doubtless, the specific names of Hndivia and Intybus are 
both derived from Hendibeh, which is the Arabic name of the plant. It seems 
probable that the Chicory of Theophrastus, which was used by the ancients, 
was our Wild Succory, since its names through Europe are but corruptions of 
the name by which the ancients called it. 

The Garden Endive (Cichériwm endivia) is a nearly allied plant, and 
some writers think it merely a variety of the common Succory. It is now 
reared in large quantities by market gardeners, and forms a valuable addition 
to spring salad. Mr. Curtis considered it a distinct species ; and it is to be 
remarked, that while the common Succory has the same name throughout 
Europe, this is known by a different one, most of the people of the Continent 
calling it Endivie, Endivia, or Endibia, while the French call it La Scarole. 
Mr. Curtis says, “The Cichdrium endivia, which is an annual or biennial, 
grows wild in the corn-fields of Spain, together with the C. intybus: it is 
undoubtedly the parent of the cultivated Endive, but it is not so clear which 
of the two is the plant so celebrated by Horace as constituting part of his 
simple diet.” 

We may occasionally see the star-like flowers of our Wild Succory of a 
clear white hue, and it has been discovered that the blue colour of the petals 
is changed into a beautiful red by the acid of ants. Mr. Miller, the engraver, 
told Mr. Curtis that the boys in Germany often amused themselves in pro- 
ducing this change of colour by placing the blossoms in an ant-hill. ‘These 
flowers were, it seems, formerly considered very beneficial to health, for 
Parkinson tells us, “The bitterness therof causeth it to be more physicall 
than the curled endive; therefore the flowers pickled up, as divers other 
flowers are used to be now a daies, make a delicate sallet at all times when 
there is occasion to use them.” This “ pickling” the flowers appears to have 


3 


‘OMMON NIPPLE -WORT 
Lapsana cammmmnis . 

DWARF W 
L. pusilla . 

WILD SUCCORY 
Cichoriam intybus 


4 COMMON BURDOCK 
Arctium lappa 
5. COMMON SAW WORT 
Serratula tmetoria 
6 ALPINE SAUSSUREA 
Samssurea alpima 


Dad Pap Bon 


fy raeiys 
CaN amet lo 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 145 


been merely mixing them with sugar, and making them. into a. kind of con- 
fection, probably similar to that favourite sweetmeat called violet-plate, so 
much in fashion in the time of Charles I. An old work, Sir John Elyot’s 
“Castel of Helth,” seems to have been a great authority among our fore- 
fathers. It was first printed in 1534, and comparatively few as readers were 
in those days, it was afterwards reprinted no less than nine times. The 
writer of this work says, ‘‘In all colerike fevers the decoction of the herbe 
Sukorie, or the water thereof, stylled, is right expedient.” A writer some 
years later, commending the Succory as a “fine cleansing jovial plant,” 
recommends the decoction of the leaves, as well as the distilled water and 
syrup, for a variety of maladies. 

This Succory is largely cultivated on the Continent, from Italy to Russia, 
for the leaves, which are used in salad, and which the French call Barbe a 
capuchin. It is also planted as fodder for cattle, and highly prized for the 
nutriment which it affords. The root, which is now so extensively used in 
this kingdom to mingle with coffee, was at first employed either as a substi. 
tute for that berry or as a surreptitious adulteration of the coffee commonly 
sold. Its use has now become very general, and some persons think, that 
mixed with the Arabian berry it improves its flavour. Dr. Howison considers 
the Succory root superior in flavour to the exotic berry ; and Dr. Duncan, 
some years since, urged the culture of the plant in this country for this pur- 
pose. In some parts of Holland and- Germany the prepared root is sold in 
large quantities, and so generally has it of late years been mingled with the 
coffee sold in this kingdom, that the Legislature has forbidden its sale, 
except in cases in which it is clearly stated to be used. Dr. Ure has informed 
us, that nothing can be easier than the detection of Chicory powder or 
similar substances in the powdered coffee. He remarks, that ground roasted 
coffee imparts to cold water merely a pale sherry colour, whereas, when it is 
adulterated with ground roasted chicory, it communicates to the water a 
brown colour of greater or less intensity. If glass tubes be set upright, and 
charged respectively, the first with one grain of pure coffee ; another with 
two of coffee mixed with a little chicory ; a third with three grains of coffee 
mixed with much chicory ; and if a small quantity of pure water be poured 
into each tube, and the vessels be shaken and then set upright again at rest, 
the solid particles will soon descend, and the clear liquid in the stem of the 
tubes will show by the varied depths of the tincture the proportions in each 
of coffee and chicory. The Succory root when intended for salad should be 
dug up, and placed in earth in a warm dark place, the crowns of the roots 
alone being exposed. The leaves will shoot out freely during winter, and 
being thus blanched lose their bitterness, and become fit for salad. 

The Succory, or Endive, is believed by many writers to be alluded to 
among the “ bitter herbs” which God commanded to be eaten by the Israelites 
with the lamb when the Passover was instituted. ‘They shall eat the flesh 
in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs 
shall they eat it.” It is difficult to ascertain the exact plants intended, but, 
as Rosenmiiller observes, the Endive has the oldest authorities in its favour, 
as the most ancient Greek Alexandrian translations render the word “ endives”; 
and Dr. Geddes remarks on this, that the Jews of Alexandria, who translated 

.—19 


146 COMPOSIT A 

the Pentateuch, could not be ignorant of what herbs were usually eaten at 
that season in their day. Five sorts of plants are stated by the Mishna, any 
one of which might be taken by the Jews on this occasion : the wild lettuce ; 
the endive; a plant which some writers explain to mean the horehound, the 
young tops of horseradish, or a thistle; another, which is by some called a 
nettle ; and lastly, one which is supposed to be the bitter coriander. 


Sub-Order II. THISTLE TRIBE (Cynarocephale). 
16. Burpbock (Arctium). 


Common Burdock (4. ldppa).—Leaves heart-shaped, stalked ; heads 
large, usually corymbose ; inner scales of the involucre awl-shaped, with a 
sharp point, longer than the florets. This form is the 4. majus of some 
writers; but a variety occurs in which the heads are much smaller, growing 
more in the form of a raceme, and the sharply-pointed inner scales of the 
involucre are shorter than the florets. This is sometimes described as 
A. minus, and regarded as a sub-species. This large biennial plant is known 
to every one by the conspicuous prickly burs which invest it during autumn, 
and which are the involucres of its summer flowers. To this bur—this ball 
of hooked scales, covered more or less witha slight web of cottony down—the 
plant owes its numerous country names, as Great Bur and Hurbur. Cul- 
pepper says, “They are called Personata, and Loppy major, Great Burdock, 
and Clod-bur; it is so well known, even by the little boys, who pull off the 
Burs to throw and stick upon one another, that I shall spare to write any 
description of it.” The name Lappa is from the Celtic //ap, a hand, because 
it catches by its hooks at passing objects ; and boys try to catch bats by 
throwing the burs at these animals. As the hooks cling to the fur or feathers 
of wild creatures the seeds get shaken out one at a time, and so widely 
scattered along the hedge and ditch. 

The Burdock is a rough-looking plant, having a stem three or four—and 
occasionally seven—feet high, with leaves around its root larger than those 
of any native plant, except the butter-bur. The foliage is dull green, and 
the flowers, which expand in July and August, are purplish-lilac, looking 
somewhat like thistle-flowers. 

The Burdock has an old reputation for curing rheumatism, the large 
leaves being applied to the painful limb. The roots were formerly preserved 
with sugar, and eaten fasting, as a remedy in pulmonary affections. Though 
the remedial virtues of the plant were doubtless overrated by the old 
herbalists, who prized it for a large number of disorders, yet the Burdock 
has undoubted medicinal uses. The slightly acrid and bitter seeds have been 
found serviceable in some cases; and a decoction of the root forms one of 
those ptisans so commonly recommended by French physicians in pectoral 
complaints. The plant is still considered by competent judges as of some 
use, even when outwardly applied, in the healing of wounds. Sir Robert 
Walpole praised a decoction of the roots as a remedy for gout; and this is 
considered by several medical botanists, among them Dr. Withering, as equal, 
if not superior, in properties to sarsaparilla, in rheumatic affections. Few 
animals will touch the leaves of the Burdock ; but the birds which sing their 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 147 


songs in the summer woods, come in autumn to peck its seeds, and some 
insects feed on the foliage. The plant really deserves praise as furnishing a 
wholesome vegetable ; and among the many whose young stems are occa- 
sionally used as a substitute for asparagus, we know of none so tender as 
this. The stems should be stripped of their rind just before the time 
of flowering. The plant is cultivated on this account in some parts of France ; 
while Kalm says, that at Philadelphia the peeled stems are commonly eaten 
as radishes. 

The Burdock is general throughout Europe, in uncultivated spots, in woods, 
or by the sides of ditches ; and it is equally so in Japan, and in many parts 
of America, The French call the plant Bardane ; the Germans, Klette ; the 
Dutch, Klissen ; the Italians, Lappola ; the Spaniards, Lampazo ; and the 
Russians, Lapuschnik. 


17. SAw-wort (Serrdtula). 


Common Saw-wort (S. tinctéria).—Flowers having their stamens and 
pistils in separate flower-heads, and sometimes on different plants; leaves 
entire or pinnatifid, usually with bristly serratures ; scales of the involucre 
either smooth or having on them a cottony down; outer ones close pressed, 
inner narrow and tinged with purple; root perennial. This plant, which 
does not grow wild in Scotland, is far from uncommon in England, being 
found in woods, thickets, and heathy places, sometimes in great profusion. 
It is a stiff, slender plant, with a stem one or two feet high, and bears, in 
August, a cluster of small terminal oblong heads of dark purple thistle-lke 
flowers, consisting of florets, which are almost globular, and which, as Purton 
says, resemble old-fashioned wine-glasses. The genus is called Saw-wort, 
from the saw-like edges of the leaves of several of the species. Our native 
plant yields a fine yellow colour, which Linnzus tells us is much used in 
Sweden in dyeing woollen cloth, and which, when fixed with alum, is both 
brighter and more permanent than the yellow dye procured from the Dyer’s- 
weed. A good brown colour and an excellent green tint are also formed 
from it by some other modes of preparation. This species is common in 
many European countries: it is called Sarrette in France, and is the 
Firberscharte of the Germans. The Dutch termit Zaagblad ; and it is known 
in Spain as the Serratula de los tintoreros. The leaves of a foreign species 
(S. amdra) are remarkable for their intense bitterness ; and an Indian species 
is much prized in Hindustan for its medical uses. 


18. SAUSSUREA (Saussurea). 


Alpine Saussurea (8S. alpina).— Leaves lanceolate, | flat, cottony 
beneath, upper ones quite entire ; root-leaves toothed and stalked ; heads few, 
in a crowded corymb ; involucre somewhat cylindrical, shaggy with hairs ; 
scales pressed close, the outer ones shorter; root perennial. This mountain 
flower serves to commemorate a native of Switzerland, and an eminent 
botanist, Benedict de Saussure. It grows on the most alpine rocks of 
Snowdon and the Lake District, is frequent in the Scottish Highlands, and 
occurs in Donegal. The stem is from eight to twelve inches high ; and the 
purple blossom, which expands in August, is, like most alpine flowers, large 

19—2 


148 COMPOSIT 


in proportion to its height. Sir J. D. Hooker saw a most curious species of 
this genus in East Nepal. This was the S. goss#piuwm, which forms great 
clusters of the softest white wool. It is six inches to a foot high, ‘‘ seeming,” 
as this botanist remarks, “uniformly clothed with the warmest fur which 
Nature can devise.” 


19. THISTLE (Carduus). 


1. Musk Thistle (C. nitans).—Leaves forming a wing down the stem, 
thorny, and deeply cut ; heads of flowers terminal, solitary, and drooping ; 
scales of the involucre lanceolate, outer ones spreading ; root biennial. The 
whole of this genus well deserves the name, taken from ard, a point ; for 
stem, foliage, and flower-cups, are all studded with sharp points. But the 
prickly habit of Thistles needs no comment; and all animals, save the 
donkey, are afraid to approach such well-armed plants. The spines on this 
species are very strong; and the large, handsome, reddish-purple flowers 
expand from May to October, diffusing, especially in the evening, a delicious 
musk-like odour. The stem is two or three feet high, little branched, and 
grey with cottony down; the flowers, which are too heavy to be shaken 
by a light summer’s wind, wave to and fro before the rougher blasts of 
autumn. 

2. Welted Thistle (C. acanthoides).—Leaves forming a wing down the 
stem, lanceolate, pinnatifid, and spinous; heads globose, nearly sessile, 
solitary or clustered ; scales of the involucre narrow, awl-shaped, erect or 
spreading ; root annual or biennial. This is a branched plant; its small 
heads of purple or rarely white flowers expanding in'June and July. Its 
stem, winged with the thorny leaves, is three or four feet in height. It is 
very common by our roadsides, and grows on many of our heaths, among 


‘The churlish Thistles, scented briars, 
The wind-swept blue-bells on the sunny braes.’ 


’ 


The leaves are sometimes smooth beneath, at others cottony. Professor 
Burnett remarks of it, ‘Some persons believe that it is the true Scotch 
Thistle, a plant of which Messrs. Dickson and Gibbs, nurserymen, near 
Inverness, raised in their grounds, a few years ago, to the astonishing height 
of eight feet ; thus seeming, for a moment, to furnish evidence in favour of 
Foote’s illnatured and pricking satire, that ‘nothing grows to perfection in 
Scotland but Thistles, and they are raised in hot-beds.’” The Professor 
considered the handsome Milk Thistle to be the true Scotch Thistle, but 
botanists are now pretty generally agreed that the Cotton Thistle has far 
greater pretensions to this distinction. The Welted Thistle is also known 
as C. crispus. 

3. Slender-flowered Thistle ((. tenwiflérus).—Leaves forming a wing 
down the stem, lanceolate, deeply cut, and spiny, somewhat cottony beneath ; 
heads of flowers cylindrical, nearly sessile, clustered ; scales of the involucre 
erect ; root annual or biennial. The stem of this Thistle is from two to four 
feet high, winged to its very summit with the bases of the prickly leaves. It 
grows near towns or on sandy places, as dry heaths, but more especially near 
the sea, Itis a very distinctly marked species, and bears small heads of pink 


SLENDER FLOWERED T 


MUSK THISTLE 


al 


temtlorus 


unmet als 


Cardums 


WELTED T 


MILK T 


L 


2 


C. aarianns . 


icanthoides . 


VETS IDE 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 149 


flowers in June and July. The long erect scales of the involucre are a 
striking feature in this plant. It is also known as C. pycnocephalus. 

4. Milk Thistle (C. maridénus).— Leaves sessile, clasping, waved, 
thorny, those of the root pinnatifid; scales of the involucre somewhat 
leafy, bending backwards, and with thorny edges; root biennial. This 
very handsome, stately plant, the Virgin Mary’s Thistle, is often cultivated in 
gardens for its beauty, but itis not commonly wild either in England or Scot- 
land ; nor is it believed to be indigenous. It grows about Edinburgh, and 
on the rock of Dumbarton; and tradition tells that it was planted in the 
latter place by Mary Queen of Scots. The stout and stiff stem is from three 
to five feet high; and the rich deep-green leaves, veined with clear white, at 
once distinguish the plant from all others of the Thistle tribe. The flower, 
which appears in June and July, is large and of a rich purple colour. It is 
the handsomest of our native Thistles. The young leaves make an excellent 
salad, and are in some countries considered a great luxury ; the tender stalks, 
laid in water to remove their bitterness, and peeled, are a good vegetable ; 
the scales of the involucre are as good as artichokes ; and in early spring the 
roots may also be boiled for the table. In Apulia, the whole plant is cultivated 
as fodder for cattle. By some it is made to constitute the genus Silybum, 


20. PLUME THISTLE (Cnicus). 


1. Spear Plume Thistle (C. lanceoldtus).—Heads of flowers large, 
mostly solitary, stalked, egg-shaped ; scales of the involucre thorny, spreading, 
woolly ; stem winged by the thorny leaves, the lobes of which are 2-cleft , 
root biennial. ‘This is a very common Thistle on waste places and hedges, 
where grow 

‘“‘TInsatiate Thistles, tyrants of the plains, 
And lurid hemlock tinged with poisonous stains.” 
Well may the plant be abundant, for the seeds float on the summer air in 
such profusion that the fields and lanes, for miles together, are whitened by 
these downy plumes, which are wafted onwards by the slightest breath of 
wind, gathering here and there in white masses, as some hedge or wide-spread 
trunk of a tree impedes their progress. Were it not that the goldfinches and 
chaflinches rob many of these plumes of the seed when they detach them from 
the Thistle top, and were it not that the autumnal rain destroys many, the 
whole land would be full of Plume Thistles. Even as it is, the wind carries 
off many a feathery seed to a kindly soil, and the farmer finds his fields 
encumbered with the produce of the neighbouring hedge-bank. It is trouble- 
some on the land by its great size, yet it is not one of the worst of weeds, 
because, being a biennial plant, it may be extirpated if cut down early, before 
flowering. Nor-is it a useless plant on the landscape. Dr. Withering 
remarks: ‘“ Few plants are more disregarded than this, yet its use is consider- 
able. If a heap of clay be thrown up, nothing would grow upon it for 
several years, did not the seeds of this plant, wafted by the wind, fix and 
vegetate thereon. Under shelter of this, other vegetation appears, and the 
whole soon becomes fertile.” The flowers, like those of the artichoke, and 
of several other Thistles, have the power of curdling milk. Neither sheep 
nor swine will touch this plant, and the horse and cow are not fond of it. It 


150 COMPOSIT 4 


is often called Bur Thistle, and resembles the Scottish Thistle in the dull 
purple hue of its flowers. 

The immense number of seeds produced by all the Thistles renders them 
very troublesome to the farmer, by spreading them with great rapidity over 
a large extent of soil, Some years since, a Scotsman, who settled in Australia, 
having the strong feeling of nationality common to his countrymen, took to 
the land of his adoption the seeds of flowers which grew around his native 
home. He sowed the Thistle seed, and he was not the only one who had an 
abundant harvest of its plants. The fertile soil suited the intruder ; and ever 
since, the Australian farmers have had to encounter as much difficulty in 
eradicating the Thistle as the English or Scotch cultivator of his native 
soil has. The steppe vegetation of the Pampas, near Buenos Ayres, 
has been overrun in the same way by introduced plants, and bears a most 
luxuriant growth of magnificent Thistles. Robert Brown says, that in 
common with the horses and other domestic animals which, since the first 
colonization of these countries in the year 1535, have spread themselves 
widely over the steppes, European plants have also been introduced, and, 
“having completely supplanted the endemic vegetation over extensive tracts, 
have given the country, in many districts, from the Plata to the Cordilleras, 
its present natural character, in the same manner as the Opuntia and Agave 
tribe have become characteristics of the shores of the Mediterranean. In this 
region, where at the present time horses of European origin only exist, 
Darwin has discovered the remains of a fossil indigenous horse of the latest 
geological period ; and exactly in the same way, together with an endemic 
Thistle, which covers extensive tracts of the Rio de la Plata, has the European 
Cardoon obtained possession of the soil over much wider districts. This lofty 
growth of Thistles is, on account of its extreme density, quite impenetrable 
by man or beast. Darwin is acquainted with no instance of an introduced 
plant occurring in such enormous quantity ; and he found on prolonged land 
journeys the same growth frequently recurring : he even observed it beyond 
the Plata, and saw many square miles in Monte Video thickly covered with 
the same Thistle.” 

2. Marsh Plume Thistle (C. palistris).—Stem winged by the leaves, 
which are pinnatifid, spiny at the edges, and rough with prickles ; involucres 
egg-shaped, clustered ; their scales pressed close, and having a sharp point ; 
root biennial. This is remarkable for its leafy clustered heads of flowers, 
and for being the tallest of all our wild Thistles. It grows on field-borders, 
especially such as are watered by a stream, or on spots where some ditch 
stagnates near at hand. In moist soils the plant will sometimes attain the 
height of ten feet, and even in drier places the stout hollow stem reaches the 
height of four feet. The flowers expand in July and August ; the bracts are 
purplish-green, the flowers purplish-lilac, sometimes white, and grow on the 
branches at the summit of the stem. The leaves are very spiny, the spines 
often tinged with brown ; the tender stalks of the leaves may be eaten either 
raw or boiled. 

3. Creeping Plume Thistle (C. arvénsis).—Leaves spinous ; involucre 
egg-shaped, nearly smooth; its scales broadly lanceolate, closely pressed, 
terminating in a short spine; root creeping, perennial. In one form the 


SPEAR PLUME THISTLE 3) CREEPING 
Cnicns lanceolatus 
MARSH FP. T L. WOOLLY HEADED 
C palustris 


5. MELANCHOLY FP. T 
C het ere sphylims 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 151 


leaves are sessile, pinnatifid, or very wavy; in another they are oblong, 
broad, and lobed, and run down the stem ; and in a third they are flat, entire, 
or slightly lobed. This Thistle of our field-borders is more frequent than 
welcome, its creeping perennial root rendering it one of the most difficult to 
eradicate of all our native species; and its leaves are so prickly, that we 
might say with Chaucer,— 
‘For Thistels sharpe of many maners, 
Netlis, thornes, and crooked briers ; 


For moche they distroubled me, 
For sore I dradid to harmid be.” 


It is a handsome plant, about two feet high, its flowers, in July, forming 
clusters of a light purple colour, and of a sweet musky odour ; and it is re- 
markable for bearing in the axils of its leaves galls, which are said to be 
powerfully astringent, and to be useful in cases of hemorrhage. The trouble 
which this Thistle causes to the agriculturist induced our fathers to call it the 
Cursed Thistle, and truly it requires no small care and industry to keep it 
within bounds. It is generally found in dry, loamy soils, seldom occurring 
in any quantity in sand or gravel. A case was recorded in the Farmer's 
Magazine years ago in which the descending roots of the plant were dug out 
of a quarry, and were nineteen feet long: nor are the horizontal roots of less 
amount. Mr. Curtis planted once, in April, about two inches of the root of 
this Thistle, in his garden. By the following November, it had thrown out 
stolons all around, several of them being eight feet long, and some sending 
up leaves five feet from the original root. The whole having been taken up, 
as it was supposed, and washed, was found to weigh four pounds. But it 
was not yet eradicated, for next spring it appeared again, nearly about the 
same spot; and between fifty and sixty young plants appeared from the 
fragments of the root which had been left in the soil, notwithstanding all the 
efforts of the gardener to exterminate them. On some ill-cultivated arable 
lands this Thistle often forms half the produce, when it affords ample 
employment to weeders, who, supplied with strong gloves and pincers, busy 
themselves in spring in striving to banish it from the soil. Some English 
botanists doubt if cows and horses will eat it, but Mr. Loudon remarks on 
this subject: “Those who know anything of the history of agriculture in 
Scotland before the introduction of turnips, will recollect that it formed the | 
suppering of housed cattle during five or six weeks of every summer.” The 
ashes of this plant yield a very pure vegetable salt ; and another plant of the 
same genus, C. oleraceus, which is said to have been once found wild in 
Lincolnshire, has fleshy roots like the skirret, that may be boiled for the 
table. It was found in 1823 in this country, but is not a native plant. It is 
much eaten by the Russians, who boil the leaves in spring, as the Siberians 
do both the leaves and roots of various species. ‘This Creeping Thistle is 
sometimes called Horse Thistle. Like the other kinds, it has an abundance 
of seeds, and Spenser might have been watching its plumes when he wrote 
the comparison— 


‘* Els as a Thistle-doune in the ayre doth float, 
So vainly shalt thou to and fro be tost ;” 


but an inspired poet had anticipated the comparison : for Isaiah spoke of “the 
rolling thing before the whirlwind ;” which learned commentators say should be, 


152 COMPOSIT At 


“the thistle-down before the whirlwind.” Children pick the thistle-plumes for 
filling cushions ; and though it is a tedious process, yet sometimes the thought 
of making a pillow for some one who is poor or sick helps to perseverance, 
and the employment may be made to awaken kindness and sympathy, as well 
as to prompt to active exercise in the open air. The plant has prickly leaves, 
and merits its name, if Wachter’s account of the origin of the word “thistle” 
be true. The Anglo-Saxon thistle he thinks may have been ¢hyd-sel, from the 
verb thyd-an, to prick. The Dutch and Germans call the plant Distel ; and 
the Danes, Zidsel. To-day, in Cornwall, the thistle is called Dysel. In 
France it is called Chardon, and in Italy Curdo. 

4. Woolly-headed Plume Thistle (C. eriéphorus).—Leaves half clasp- 
ing, but not forming a wing down the stem, white and cottony beneath, 
deeply pinnatifid, the lobes two-cleft, the segments pointing alternately up- 
wards and downwards, and each terminated by a strong spine; involucres 
very large, globose, woolly ; the scales with a long spinous point turning 
downwards ; roots biennial. This species is distinguished from the others by 
the very thick down which clothes the scales of the involucre, and which 
prevents the seeds from readily dispersing. It grows in waste places on a 
chalk or limestone soil, but is local in England, and very rare in Scotland. 
It has purple flowers, as large as those of the Milk Thistle, and its leaves are 
clothed with white down ; but the branched furrowed stem is rarely more 
than two feet high. It blossoms in July and August. 

5. Melancholy Plume Thistle (C. heterophiyllus).—Leaves partly 
clasping, not forming a wing, lanceolate, soft, undivided or toothed, smooth 
above, white and downy beneath; heads mostly solitary ; involucres egg- 
shaped, slightly downy ; scales pointed and closely pressed ; root perennial. 
This handsome flower has nothing sad in its appearance, for the colour of its 
blossom is a rich amethyst purple, and its involucres are of a bright though 
dark-green colour ; but it was formerly used by empirics as a medicine in 
hypochondriasis. It is frequent on the mountainous pastures of the North, 
and is not uncommon on moist hilly places in many parts of the kingdom. 
It has a creeping root, and a cottony stem, marked with lines, and about 
three feet high. It stands almost alone among this thorny tribe, as being a 
Thistle which one may venture to gather without wounding the fingers. 

6. Tuberous Plume Thistle (C. tuberdsus).—Leaves sessile, not 
forming a wing, lanceolate, deeply pinnatifid, lobed, fringed with minute 
prickles, hairy above, and either hairy or cottony beneath, lower ones on 
long stalks; stem without prickles; flowers one, two, or three together ; 
scales of the involucre closely pressed, nearly smooth, pointed, with a spine ; 
root perennial. This is a rare Thistle, found on the Wiltshire Downs, and 
flowering in July and August. The roots are fleshy knobs, and contain a 
large quantity of starch-like substance, which is mingled with a bitter, tonic, 
and nutritious principle ; and the powder into which they may be ground is 
so light in quality, and so very nutritive, that it has been recommended as a 
good diet for consumptive persons. 

7. Meadow Plume Thistle (C. praténsis)—Leaves mostly from the 
root, soft ; stem-leaves sessile, lanceolate, waved at the margin, fringed with 
minute prickles, cottony beneath, and somewhat downy above ; heads globose, 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 153 


mostly: solitary, terminal, and slightly cottony ; scales closely overlapping 
each other, pointed ; root perennial and creeping. This is a small plant, 
with a cottony stem, from six to eight inches high, bearing one or more 
purple flowers in July. It occurs in low wet pastures in England, but is rare 
in Scotland. 

8. Dwarf Plume Thistle, or Stemless Thistle (C. acaiilis).—Stem 
very short, or scarcely any ; leaves all from the root, smooth, lanceolate, 
somewhat oblong and pinnatifid; lobes somewhat three-cleft, toothed and 
spinous ; heads of flowers mostly solitary ; involucre smooth, with closely- 
pressed, pointed scales; inner scales usually longer than :the outer; root 
perennial. This plant is better named Dwarf and Stemless Thistle, as it 
sometimes, though rarely, has a steman inch or more long ; but very generally 
the flower nestles down among the leaves, which spread all around it. This 
circumstance at once distinguishes this Thistle; and in some parts of the 
country, where the soil is chalk and gravel, it is a frequent and very trouble- 
some plant, occupying much room on the level plain or sunny slope, and, by 
preventing the growth of the grass, proving very destructive to the pasture. 
It is not found north of Yorkshire. The flower is deep reddish-purple, 
large and handsome. It expands from July to September. 


21. Corron THISTLE (Onopérdum). 


1. Common Cotton Tihstle (0. acénthiwm).—Leaves oblong, toothed, 
spiny, woolly on both sides, and forming a wing down the stem; involucre 
globose, its scales spreading, and awl-shaped ; root biennial. This Thistle 
has its specific name from the leaves, which are somewhat similar in form to 
those of the acanthus, the plant which is believed to have furnished the 
ancients with the design of the elegant leaf used in their architecture. That 
plant is supposed to be the Acanthus mollis of Southern Europe, and is quite 
distinct from the Thistle tribe. The handsome Cotton Thistle is the one 
which the Scotsman claims for his badge, and which is often cultivated under 
the name of the Scotch Thistle. It certainly deserves to be so regarded far 
better than any other species. Though it occurs as far north as Fife, it is 
not so common in Scotland as on English soil, where it is one of the most 
frequent plants of its family, abounding on waste ground, from the towering 
cliff, where it rears its head among the crevices, down to the lowliest valley 
or the brambled nook, where grasses, docks, and nettles tangle about it, and 
where its purple flowers rise above them all, on a stem from four to six feet 
in height. It has a thorny flower-cup, and thorny leaves ; and if legends be 
true which tell that the invading Dane trod on a Thistle, and by his cry 
awoke the Scots who were sleeping near, believing in the honour of plighted 
truce, then this Thistle is well suited to recall the incident, and to bear the 
old legendary motto. That proud and defiant motto indeed, Nemo me 
impune lacessit (‘No one touches me with impunity ”)—which has jocosely 
been rendered into homely Scotch by “ Ye maunt meddle wi’ me ”—seems 
well suited to this thorny Thistle, which none could grasp with impunity. 
The Scotsman is proud of his emblem ; and, indeed, the Thistle is one of the 
most picturesque of our native flowers, and a flower mentioned in earliest 
history. True, God sent it as a curse to toiling man—true it may be that 

I1.—20 


154 COMPOSIT 4 


Eve beheld its purple rays through blinding tears—yet with that curse came 
mercy ; and as toil sweetens rest, so those soft amethyst tints give a grace 
to the thorny plants. The order of knighthood called the Order of the 
Thistle is said by Nisbet and other Scottish antiquaries to be a very ancient 
one, and to have been instituted by Achaius, King of the Scots, when he 
obtained a victory over Athelstan; but this is not apparent from any 
authentic records, nor does the Thistle appear to have been employed as a 
royal or national badge before the latter part of the fifteenth century. The 
first mention of it occurs in the inventory of the effects of King James IIL, 
who died A.D. 1488. It also appears on the collar worn by James V., and 
was subsequently worn by his successors. The insignia borne by the knights - 
of the Order of the Thistle is a gold collar with thistles and sprigs of rue 
interlaced. A gold medal is also worn, bearing a figure of St. Andrew, with 
his cross of martyrdom, within a circle containing the national motto. The 
rue was probably significant of remembrance ; and on various works of art 
we find the Thistle popularly used without the rue, but with the motto 
beneath it, ‘‘ Dinna forget.” Graham refers to his nation’s flower : 


‘“Proud Thistle, emblem dear to Scotland’s sons, 
Begirt with threatening points, strong in defence, 
Unwilling to assault! By thee the arm 
Of England was repell’d: the rash attempt 
Oft did the wounded arm of England rue ; 

But fraud prevail’d where force had tried in vain, 
Fraud undermined thy roots, and laid thy head, 
Thy crested head, long sullied in the dust.” 


Happily, however, these national prejudices and dislikes have passed away, 
and the Englishman looks on the Thistle in the badge of his country with 
as much satisfaction as on the rose. Robert Nichols, and many another 
Scottish poet, has verses in its praise :— 


‘* May it flourish, its home is our dear native land ; 
While there’s life in ilk heart, while there’s strength in ilk hand ; 
Be’t by night or by day—be’t by sea or by land, 
We'll stand by the auld Scottish Thistle. 


‘* While we hallow the graves of the free and the brave, 
While the land hath a stream, while the sea hath a wave, 
While the bold are the free, and the coward’s a slave, 

We'll stand by the auld Scottish Thistle. 


‘For the love of the maiden, the praise of the free. 
For the blessings that father and mother will gi’e, 
For the hames that are dear both to you and to me, 

We'll stand by the auld Scottish Thistle.” 


The Scotch Thistle, though peculiar to no soil, seems to flourish best upon 
gravel. Its somewhat dull purple flowers, which are mostly solitary, though 
sometimes two or three together, are large, and expand in July and August. 
The plant was formerly cultivated for its esculent fleshy receptacle, but the 
culture of the artichoke and of the cardoon has superseded its use. According 
to Gerarde, the artichoke was introduced into this country in the sixteenth 


century. The Spaniards call our Scotch Thistle Al-cachofa (Wild Artichoke), 


By: TOUBEROUS PLUME THISTLE 3. DWARF P. T 


Cnicus tuberosus © acanlis 
2 MEADOW P. T 4. COTTON THISTLE 
C pratensis Onoporaum acanthium. 


COMMON CARLINE THISTLE 
Carhna vulgaris 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 155 


and consider it as a dietetic vegetable. It appears, from some lines in 
' Browne’s Pastorals, to have been formerly so regarded here :— 
‘‘ With a right willing hand, she gave me thence 
The stomacke’s comforter, the pleasing quince ; 
And, for the chiefest cherisher, she lent 
The royal Thistle’s milky nourishment.”’ 

The expressed juice, as well as a decoction of the astringent root of this 
Thistle, has been used in medicine with good effect. The seeds are oily. 
M. Durand states, as the result of his frequent experiments, that twenty-two 
pounds of the Thistle-heads yield twelve pounds of seeds, from which three 
pounds of oil fit for burning may be expressed by the aid of heat. 

The following poem was written by H. G. Adams, for this volume :— 


THE THISTLE. 


‘* Of a proud and ancient family, But that Conqueror’s name was Death. 
Of a vigorous old stock, When man through disobedience fell, 
Is the stout and sturdy Thistle, And first knew failing breath ; 
Which bides the tempest’s shock ; Then Thistles grew about his path, 
Which, when the wild blast sweeps the And thorns his feet beneath. 
hill, 
And the torrent ploughs the vale, ‘“« A blazonment the Thistle hath, 
Right steadily abideth still, A motto proud it bears, 
And never turneth pale, ‘ Noli me tangere’ the words— 
But saith, ‘No elemental power Touch me the man who dares ! 
Against me shall prevail !’ But for all its vaunting, it full oft 


Is taken by the beard, 
‘* Would you see the Thistle in its strength, By the horny hand of toil that ne’er 


And view it in its pride, Its family hath fear’d ; 
Go where the summer sunshine steeps And the ploughshare rends its stalwart 
The moor and mountain side. frame, 
Go where the hoary ruin nods, When the fallow lands are clear’d. 
And the grey cairn lifts its head, eae L 
And the Gael lays him down to sleep “Yet soon again it springeth up, 
Upon a heathery bed, Displays its crimson crown, 
With his nation’s emblem at his feet, And spreads abroad its progeny 
And the blue sky overhead. In clouds of seeded down. 
They gather here, they gather there, 
‘*To read the Thistle’s pedigree, They root them in the earth ; 
Your backward glances cast ; Anon rough leaves and prickly stems 
For it stretches far and far away O’er all the land have birth, 
Into the misty past, And they grow and thrive exceedingly, 
Beyond all ancient history, Careless of drought and dearth, 
To the dawn of earthly time, 3 
Where the golden fruits of Paradise ‘Full many a relative hath he, 
Gleam in the dewy prime : This plant of old renown— 
Alas, that even there we read Some, dwellers in the wilderness, 
Of human woe and crime ! Some, by the busy town. 
The traveller meets them everywhere, 
** Would you ask whence came the Thistle, And blesseth God the while, 
And when it first unfurl’d Who giveth beauty with the curse, 
Its crimson banner on the hills, And sanctifieth toil, 
Defying all the world ? And maketh even the dreary waste 
It came in with the Conqueror— Like a fair garden smile.” 


Various alterations in the nomenclature of the Thistles have occurred ; 
and the Gentle Thistle, Asses’ Thistle, Fish Thistle, Cursed Thistle, Cruel 
Thistle, Friars’-crown, Thistle upon Thistle, and other well-known plants 
of other days, cannot now be exactly identified. Almost all our common 
Thistles belong to the genera Carduus and Cnicus, The receptacle of the 

20—2 


156 COMPOSIT At 


larger kinds, and the young shoots of nearly all the species, may be eaten ; 
and the Romans appear to have used some at table, though the species cannot 
be ascertained, Carduus being among the Romans the common name for the 
Thistle tribe. “It occurs,” says Beckmann, ‘among those of weeds, and may 
then be properly translated by the word Thistle. It, however, often signifies 
an eatable Thistle; for Pliny took occasion to make use of an insipid piece 
of raillery when he says, that ‘ Luxury prepared as food for man what would 
not be eaten by cattle.” He adds, that we are informed by Pliny and 
Apicius that the Carduus was pickled in vinegar ; but it may be the young 
tops of the Thistle or the artichoke, or even the burdock. “ Elsholz,” he 
remarks, in his “Gartenbau,” referring to the cardoon, “says, ‘The strong 
stem of the large burr (Arctium ldppa) may be dressed in the same manner, 
and is not much different in taste.’” The plague-water, so celebrated a 
remedy of our ancestors in the seventeenth century, is said by Dr. Millingen 
to have been composed of masterwort, angelica, peony, butter-bur, viper- 
grass, Virginian snake-roots, rue, rosemary, balm, carduus, water-germander, 
marigold, dragon’s-blood, goat’s-rue, and mint, infused in spirits of wine. 


22. CARLINE THISTLE (Carlina). 


Common Carline Thistle (C. vulgdris).— Stem many-flowered, 
downy ; leaves lanceolate, unequally spinous, and deeply toothed, downy 
beneath ; root biennial. Wherever we see this plant, we may feel assured 
that the soil is barren ; and one may bless the great Creator that, barren as 
it is, some gay flower is yet destined to enliven it, seeming like a gleam of 
sunshine on a winter’s day, or a sudden hope brightening over a brow of 
care. Many rocky, arid wastes, many dry heaths, or chalky cliffs, or hilly 
slopes, covered with short grass and bluebells—spots where the lover of wild 
flowers delights to roam, and on which the memory often lingers—are orna- 
mented by this prickly thistle. Such spots seem particularly associated with 
the idea of freedom. The landscape stretches far away, and the roaming 
winds and roving bee seem free as the air which bears them onwards. Scenes 
like these are just such as the captive in his cell would picture in his longing 
dreams, and might, as we wander about them, awaken a thought of pity for 
those who are shut out from all the loveliness of nature. 

Those who are not botanists may at once know the Carline Thistle from 
all others by its pale yellow flower-head, for all our common Thistle blossoms 
are of some shade of purple. Indeed, even in this Thistle the florets are 
purple ; but they are surrounded by yellow, glossy, chaffy rays, which look 
like an assemblage of petals, but these are, in fact, the inner scales of the 
flower-cup, and in winter time, when flower and leaf are alike withered, they 
glisten on the stem like rays of polished silver. Before expansion, as well 
as during moist weather, these chaffy scales rise up to protect the inner part 
of the plant from rain and dew. The flower resembles in texture those 
garden blossoms which we call Everlastings, and will preserve much of its 
beauty for months after it is gathered. It grows on a cottony stem, about 
a foot high, and the involucre and leaves are very rigid and thorny. The 
flowers expand from July to October, and though not unfrequent in England, 
are rare in Scotland. Either this or some allied species grows in more or 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 157 


less abundance in almost all the countries of Europe, and, in sandy situations, 
in many parts of the world. Linneus, regarding it as an indication of a 
barren soil, calls it “a mournful spectacle.” It has black, woody, tapering roots, 
which are said to be eaten when young, but which are certainly, when older, 
acrid and disagreeable. The receptacle of the flower is, however, a very good 
vegetable, and is often eaten; while another species of Carline Thistle 
(C. acanthifolia), which grows in abundance on the mountains of Dauphiny, 
is commonly used there as a substitute for the artichoke. The habit of 
closing its flowers before rain renders the Carline Thistle a favourite village 
hygrometer ; and both this and another species are hung against the cottage- 
doors of France, Germany, and Spain, to give reports of coming changes, 
The French call it Carline ; the Germans, Eberwurz; the Dutch, Hverwortel ; 
the Italians and Spaniards, Carlina ; and the Russians, Kolintschka. 

The bark of our Carline Thistle abounds in a resinous, gummy matter, 
and the Carlina gummiféra has a similar substance in great abundance, both 
root and flower yielding a gum which hardens into small pieces like gum- 
mastick. The root of this kind is said to be poisonous. From time im- 
memorial both this and our native species have been used medicinally, and 
their fleshy receptacles not only eaten as a vegetable, but often preserved as 
a sweetmeat with honey or sugar. Olivier de Serres says that the Carline 
Thistle received its name from Charlemagne, whose army was cured of the 
plague by its use ; a story which, improbable as it is, is less so than the intro- 
ductory circumstance that an angel directed this monarch to the plant. 
Linnzeus ascribes the origin of its name to the circumstance that the army of 
Charles V., when in Barbary, was cured by it of that dread disease. The 
plant possesses some tonic and stimulating properties. 


23. KNAPWEED, BLUEBOTTLE, AND STAR THISTLE (Centauréa). 


1. Brwon-rayed Knapweed (C. jicea).—Leaves egg-shaped and lanceo- 
late, stalked, toothed ; involucre pale brown, outer scales few, with appen- 
dages deeply jagged in a pinnatifid manner, innermost entire, the rest jagged 
irregularly ; root perennial. This is a very rare species, and is perhaps not 
truly wild, one specimen only having been found in Sussex, and another in 
Lanarkshire. It bears purple flowers in August and September, the heads 
being rayed, and the seeds having no pappus. The plant has, on the Con- 
tinent, been much used as a febrifuge, and appears to possess some good 
medicinal properties ; several of the species contain, like the Great Yellow 
Knapweed of Italy (C. centaurium), a most powerful bitter principle. This 
plant is by some botanists thought equal to gentian, and the long-celebrated 
Blessed Thistle (C. benedicta) was formerly considered a most valuable herb. 
It was cultivated by the monks, and is still to be seen in many an English 
garden. It was thought to cure fevers, the plague, and other pestilential 
maladies. It is little esteemed now, but Professor Burnett remarks of it: 
“ Although now neglected, its properties are such as to lead to the belief that 
it has been superseded by other not more efficacious remedies, its chief fault 
being the ease with which it may be obtained ; for with too many persons 
the difficulty of procuring, the distance it must be fetched, or the exorbitant 


158 COMPOSIT At 


price, are considered to be the essential pre-requisites of a medicine.” The 
French give the name of Blessed Thistle to a plant of another genus. Their 
Chardon beni is the Carthamus lanatus. 

2. Black Knapweed (C. nigra).—Involucral appendages erect, egg- 
shaped, cut like the teeth of a comb, closely and deeply fringed with spread- 
ing hair-like teeth, lower leaves deeply toothed, somewhat lyre-shaped, upper 
ones lanceolate, all rough ; pappus an outer row of blunt scales; heads of 
flowers in one form discoid, in another rayed. <A plant called Black-rayed 
Knapweed (C. nigréscens) is described by Mr. Babington as a distinct species, 
but some writers doubt if it is so. Its general appearance is much like that 
of C. nigra, but it is a stouter and more leafy plant, with a larger flower, 
which is generally rayed. The involucral appendages are paler, cut like the 
teeth of a comb, but less deeply than in the common form, about three of the 
innermost separated from the rest, and exposing the scales ; the narrow, 
thread-like teeth ascending, very short; the pappus wanting; the leaves 
narrow, lanceolate ; the lower ones deeply toothed or somewhat lyrate. This 
plant is found in some meadows and pastures in the southern counties ; it is 
synonymous with the C. nigra, var. decipiens, of Hooker’s “ Student’s Flora.” 
Our common Black Knapweed (C. nigra) is to be found everywhere, being, from 
June to August, one of the commonest flowers of our meadows and pastures, 
growing by roadsides, on field-borders, or sea-cliffs, and having a tough stem 
one or two feet high. The tint of the purple flowers is somewhat dull, and 
they are seldom rayed ; the scales of the involucre are brown, almcst black. 
It is regarded by the agriculturist as a troublesome intruder on the land, being 
difficult of extirpation, and seldom touched by cattle either in the green or 
dried state. A Russian species of this genus is the favourite food of the 
Crimean sheep, and is supposed to give the beautiful grey to the wool of 
lambs, so highly prized both in Turkey and Tartary as an ornament to the 
calpack or cap worn by Tartar gentlemen instead of a turban. 

3. Greater Knapweed (C. scabidsa).—Scales of the involucre closely 
pressed, with a black finely-toothed margin and paler fringe ; leaves somewhat 
rough, pinnatifid, segments lanceolate, acute ; pappus hairy ; root perennial. 
This is a very handsome species, not having dull, compact, purple heads, like 
those of the Black Knapweed, but the flowers having spreading rays, some- 
times forming a circle as large as a crown-piece. The involucre, too, is large 
and globose, its scales of lighter colour, often cottony, and the whole plant 
taller and stouter. This plant is often called Hard-heads, and several of the 
species have the familiar name of Iron-weed. It grows in meadows, cornfields, 
and on sunny banks, needing not any luxuriance of soil ; for on many sea-cliffs 
it forms, in July and August, magnificent clumps of bright purplish-lilac flowers, 
and often graces them in November with an occasional blossom. Sometimes 
these flowers have a sweet though faint odour, which, though not so powerful, 
resembles that of an allied garden flower, the Sweet Sultan (C. moschdta), which 
our fathers called Honeyflower. Our Knapweed grows on a stem about two 
or three feet high ; the involucres are often as large and almost as hard as a 
marble. To which of our species the old legend refers as being used by 
Chiron, it would be hard to say. “The Greater Centaury,” says Pliny, “is 
that famous herb wherewith Chiron the Centaur, as the report goeth, was 


1 


BROWN-RAYED ICNAP WEED 
Centaurea Jacea 
BLACK DIScCOID. 
iG nigra 
GREATER . It 
C .scablosa 
7. YELLOW. S i by 
C. solstitiahs 


+ 


CORN BLUE BOTTLE 
( Valius 
JERSEY STAR THISTLE 
C.isnardi 


COMMON S.T 
C. calcitrapa 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 159 


cured, at what time as having entertained Hercules in his cabin, he would 
needs be handling and tampering with the weapons of his said guest so long, 
until one of the arrows light upon his foot, and wounded him dangerously.” 
In some places there grows a larger form, with heads three inches across, 
whose inner florets are edged with pink, and the outer florets pure white. 

4. Corn Bluebottle (C. cyanus).—Scales of the involucre closely pressed, 
with a brown-toothed margin; leaves narrow, lanceolate, entire, the lower- 
most toothed or pinnatifid; pappus downy; root annual. This flower, 
arrayed in the most brilliant blue tint, waves among the ripening corn from 
the end of June till the reaper lays it low in August. It is one of our 
prettiest wild flowers, and has a stem two or three feet high, covered with a 
cottony down, which also invests the under surface of its leaves. 

The poetic fable which tells that the youth Cyanus spent hours in the 
cornfields, wove its blossoms into garlands, and admired them above all 
others, accounts for its specific name ; and many a country child yet sits by 
the side of the waving corn, binding this flower into its nosegay. The 
German ladies often place it in their hair, and they give it many pet names ; 
while the gardener has brought it from the field to the garden-bed, and by 
his care and skill increased the number of its florets, and sometimes varied 
their hue. It looks well in the flower-border, though never so pleasing as 
when growing among the golden ears, with the poppy and scabious for its 
companions. It is pre-eminently the Cornflower, and either this or some 
nearly allied species decks the corn-fields throughout Europe. It is known 
in Germany as the Kornblume ; in France, as the Bluet ; in Italy, as the 
Ciano ; and it is the Aciano azuleio of the Spaniards. It has in this country 
many pretty and expressive rustic names. Dr. Turner, who wrote in 1564, 
calls it Blewblawe, as well as Blewbottle ; and it is still the Corn Bluebottle 
of our country people, probably because of the vase-like form of its outer 
florets. Gerarde calls it also Hurt-sickle ; and he tells us that it was often 
sown in the gardens, and by “cunning looking to doth oftentimes become 
of other colours, and also double.” Dr. Turner also says, “‘Some herbalists 
call it Laptistecula or Blaptisecula, because it hurteth sikles, which were called 
of olde writers Seculw.” In Scotland it is now termed Blue-bonnet. We have 
often heard it called Blue-cap in Kent, and the Northamptonshire peasant 
calls it so. ; 

‘*¥rom the first time the Spring’s young thrills are born, 
And golden catkins deck the sallow tree, 
Till Summer’s Blue-caps blossom mid the corn, 
And Autunin’s ragwort yellows o’er the lee, 
I roam’d the fields about, a happy child, 
And bound my posies up with rushy ties, 


And laugh’d and mutter’d o’er my visions wild, 
Bred in the brain of pleasure’s ecstasies.”’ 


A very beautiful blue colour, almost equal to ultramarine, may be pro- 
cured from our Corn-flower, by picking out the central florets, which are 
of deeper blue, and by pounding them, while quite fresh, in a glass or marble 
mortar, so as to obtain the juice ; a small quantity of alum should then be 
mixed with it, and it is fit for use. If a paler blue should be required, the 
outer florets should be taken. It will stain linen of a rich azure tint. 


160 COMPOSIT A 


Beautiful as the colour is, it cannot, however, be praised, at least when 
prepared as we have described, for its permanence. Miniature painters are 
said to use it; and in the first edition of ‘English Botany,” a separate 
blossom, figured at the bottom of the plate, was painted with the juice of 
this Corn-flower, and now remains an evidence of the fugitive nature of the 
tint thus procured ; yet a good ink is said to be made of the petals. The 
blue tint of the Corn-flower itself, when on its native field, is so rich, thatmo 
artificial colour can well represent it. It is sometimes, both in its wild ahd 
cultivated state, of a dark purple hue. Several of the species besides this 
are planted in the flower-garden. 

The author has often observed the Bluebottle to be a favourite both of 
the bee and butterfly ; and Professor Rennie remarked this when commenting 
on the power of smell in insects. ‘We have observed that butterflies of all 
species, though far from being voracious feeders, will often dart down from 
a considerable height upon a flower beneath their track. This struck us 
more particularly in a narrow garden at Havre-de-Grace, inclosed with stone 
walls fifteen feet high ; for no butterfly, in passing over it, omitted to descend 
for the purpose of visiting the blossoms of an Alpine Bluebottle (C. montana), 
whose smell, however, to our organs was far from being powerful enough to 
be perceived at the distance of one foot, much less at fifteen or twenty feet, 
as it must have been by the butterflies, for we often saw the Painted Lady 
(Cynthia cardut) alight there.” 

5. Jersey Knapweed (C. paniculata).—Involucre egg-shaped, its bracts 
spiny-toothed or fringed with soft spines; stem slender, sharply angled, 
erect, branched, woolly ; branches forming a panicle. Lower leaves divided 
into pinnate lobes, which are again cut into narrow segments ; upper leaves 
slender, undivided. The heads are nearly an inch long, their purple florets 
expanding in July. The smooth, silvery-white fruits have a pappus of short, 
flat bristles. This plant, which is very variable in stature, is a biennial, 
found only in Jersey. 

6. Jersey Star Thistle (C. isndrdi).—Scales of the involucre with 
palmate, nearly equal spines; heads of flowers terminal, solitary ; pappus 
of the fruit in several rows; leaves rough, lower ones somewhat lyrate, 
deeply cut, with ears clasping the stem; upper ones long and slender, 
coarsely toothed, and narrowed at the base; root perennial. ‘This plant, 
which bears small purple flowers in July and August, is found, though rarely, 
in pastures of Jersey and Guernsey. It does not occur in England, Scotland, 
or Ireland. It is also known as C. aspera. 

7. Common Star Thistle (C. calcitrapa).—Scales of the involucre 
smooth, ending in a long, firm, broad-channelled spine; stem branched, 
spreading ; leaves unequally pinnatifid, toothed, and spiny ; stem-leaves 
slender and undivided ; root biennial. This plant is very local, but it is not 
unfrequent on many gravelly, sandy, or chalky soils in the south of England. 
The author has often found it in Kent, as on chalky banks on Chatham Hill, 
and also on the cliffs and shingle of Dover. It is very unlike any other of 
our wild flowers in the spreading long thorns of its flower-head, which are at 
first green, but which become afterwards very hard and woody, and as 
strong and sharp as the thorns on a May-bush, and large enough to attract 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 161 


the attention of the most casual observer. This appendage to the scales of 
the involucre procured for the plant its specific name, for it much resembles 
the implement used in ancient warfare, and called Caltrop, which was an iron 
ball set with iron spikes, and which, being thrown beneath the feet of the 
horses, cruelly wounded these animals as they pressed onwards. 

8. Yellow Star Thistle (C. solstitialis). —Spines of the upper involucral 
bracts half an inch long, not channelled; spines of the lower bracts very 
small. Stem winged, erect, rigid, and branched, each branch terminated by 
a flower-head. J,ower leaves lyre-shaped, upper very slender with entire 
margins. Plant annual. This plant, which is a native of the Mediterranean 
region, appears to have been introduced to the South and East of England 
among seeds of lucern and other fodder plants. It occurs only rarely in the 
districts indicated, and may be readily known from the other species by its 
winged stem, a foot or so high, and its yellow florets. The flowers appear 
from July to September, and are succeeded by copious white pappus. 


Sub-Order II]. CORYMBIFERA. 
1. THE Tansy Group (Tubiflore). 
24. Bur MARIGOLD (Bidens). 


1. Nodding Bur Marigold (Bb. cérnua).—Leaves sessile, lanceolate, 
undivided, connate ; flowers drooping; bracts longer than the involucre ; 
fruit usually with 3 or 4 bristles; annual. The sides of streams and rivulets 
are the spots on which we must look for this plant. It is not, however, 
very ornamental to them, for the large button-like flowers are of a tawny- 
brown or yellowish-green colour, having at their base a number of leafy 
bracts. The stem is one or two feet high, and somewhat succulent, as are 
the large smooth leaves. The oblong fruit terminates in stiff bristles, which 
are three or four in number, and each of which, as may be clearly seen by a 
glass, is turned back like the point of an arrow, so as to cling to the wool of 
an animal, the clothing of man, or any other object with which it may come 
in contact. Dr. George Johnston, in his “Flora of Berwick,” furnishes us 
with some very interesting comments on this plant. ‘The following 
remarks,” says this writer, ‘‘were communicated to me by Mr. Brown: 
‘Annual plants, it has been observed, produce in general more seed than, 
perennial, and the reason is obvious. The Bidens is annual, and we might 
expect it to have the benefit of this provision ; for, indeed, the circumstances 
of its growth seem to call for greater productiveness than is common even 
among annuals. It is found by the sides of ponds and ditches, and its seeds 
are thus ever in danger of being blown either to the dry land, or to the 
deeper parts of the pond. In either case they must perish. On the dry land 
they are useless, for it is a water plant ; and, on the other hand, if blown to 
the deeper parts, they will sink to the bottom, and never germinate, or ger- 
minate in vain. Now, though these seeds are exposed to so many dangers, 
and though the continuance of the species depends on their preservation, yet 
is their number by no means great. The flower-heads are small, and never 
numerous ; the seeds large in proportion, and, of course, few are produced by 

11.—21 


162 COMPOSIT Ai 


a single plant. This apparent deficiency is, however, well compensated by 
a peculiar provision. The seeds are four-cornered, and the corners are fur- 
nished with sharp deflexed prickles. Each of these corners is also prolonged 
into an awn still more thickly set with prickles than the corner itself. Now, 
the intention of this conformation is obvious. The seed falls with the awns 
pointing upwards, the prickles come into action, attach themselves to the 
various plants which float at or near the surface, and becoming fixed, germinate 
in a favourable situation ; for as the deflexed prickles fix to the first object 
which they meet, the seeds are kept as near as possible to the stations of the 
old plants, and prevented from being carried either on shore or into places 
which are too deep. How well the prickles are fitted to perform their office 
may be gathered from a fact mentioned by Lightfoot, that the seeds of the 
Bidens tripartita have been known sometimes to destroy the Cyprinus auratus, 
or gold-fish, by adhering to their gills or jaws.’ So closely do they attach 
themselves to whatever they come in contact with! May not this structure 
of theirs save them also from the depredations of birds ?” 

We are much indebted to botanists who will prosecute investigations of 
this kind, and point out these skilful contrivances and adjustments. To many 
a heart these obvious marks of God’s care bring cheering thoughts—remem- 
brances that they and their sorrows are not too small or unimportant for His 
notice. They encourage the heart to rise to God in the small as well as the 
great events of life ; and when this communion between the creature and the 
Creator is once established, sorrows are consoled and lessened, and understood 
to be blessings. ‘The calmness and happiness of naturalists are often com- 
mented upon; and though it would be folly to affirm that every naturalist is 
a Christian, any more than that every naturalist is happy, still it will be 
manifest that the mind accustomed to look from these evidences of design to 
the great Designer, must gain a conviction of His skill and love which may 
support and cheer, and produce a calm reliance on His goodness. 

The Nodding Bur Marigold is in flower from July to October, and, as one 
might infer from its acridity, it is not relished by cattle, and when chewed 
excites salivation. Both this and the next species have been used in dyeing 
yellow. The French call the plant Le bident ; and it is Der Zweyzalen of the 
Germans. It is in Holland termed Tandzaad ; in Spain and Italy, Bidente ; 
and is the Brénsel of the Danes. 

2. Trifid Bur Marigold (D. tripartita).—Leaves 3-parted, serrated ; 
heads of flowers nearly erect; bristles of the fruit 2 or 3; annual. This 
is readily distinguished from the other species by the thrice-parted leaves ; 
the flowers are also smaller, and scarcely drooping. It is in blossom from 
July to September, on marshy bogs, or by rivers and streams, and possesses 
a similar acridity to the last species. Both kinds have sometimes a ray of 
small florets without stamens or pistils. 


25. GALINSOGA. 


Small-flowered Galinsoga (G. parviflora).—Leaves egg-shaped, oppo- 
site, saw-toothed and fringed. Stem slender, downy, branched, from one to 
two feet high. Flower-heads small, grouped in cymes, the involucral bracts 


at NODDING BUR-MARIGOLD 3 SEA -SIDE COTTON WEED 


Bidens cermua Diotis maritima 
2 ERIE D), B + COMMON TANSY 
B trpartita Tanacettum vulgare 


Pl. 123, 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 163 


with their dry fringed margins, in one row only. All the florets are yellow, 
the outer ones, of which there are from four to six, rayed. Plant annual. 
This plant is not British, but in recent years it has become quite naturalized 
about cultivated fields, chiefly in the counties of London, Middlesex and 
Surrey, where its flowers may be seen from July to October. It was intro- 
duced from Peru, and has taken so kindly to English soil that it has become 
an absolute pest in some of the market-gardens on the outskirts of London. 


26. COTTON-WEED (Dvdétis). 

Seaside Cotton-weed (D. maritima).—Leaves oblong, blunt ; heads of 
flowers small and terminal; perennial. This is a rare plant of the sandy 
sea-shore, with small white heads thickly set with leaves, and both stem and 
foliage so covered with down as to look as if they had on them a thin coating 
of lint ; and among this crowd of leaves and the scales of their own cups, the 
little yellow blossoms are almost hidden. The plant is about a foot high, and 
is in flower from August to September. Its roots run far into the sand, and 
its branched stems are very brittle. It is found principally in the east and 
south-east of England, in some localities growing plentifully. It is slightly 
bitter and aromatic ; a larger species, found in the East Indies (Didtis candid- 
isstma), is very powerfully so, and is used medicinally. 


27. Tansy (Tanacétum). 


Common Tansy (Z. vulgdre).—Leaves twice pinnatifid, cut; flowers 
in a terminal corymb; perennial. The Tansy sometimes grows on field- 
borders and road-sides, and is often found in great luxuriance on banks by 
the sea, as at Sandgate, in Kent, or on river-sides, as on the shores of the 
Ayon. Its yellow flowers, during June and July, stand like masses of golden 
buttons among its dark green, prettily cut foliage. The stem is about two or 
three feet high, and the whole plant is bitter and aromatic, and useful in 
medicine. Some persons like its flavour, but to most it is so disagreeable that 
we wonder not that it was selected for eating at Easter season as a representa- 
tive of the bitter herbs commanded to be taken with the Paschal lamb. One 
can well understand how cakes made of this plant, and called Tansies, might 
have been eaten for the purpose of mortifying the appetite, or intended, by 
their somewhat tonic properties, to sustain the strength during a season of 
fasting ; but that Tansy puddings should be relished as a pleasant food, and 
Tansy omelets prized as delicacies, seems strange to the many who dislike the ° 
taste of the plant. An allusion in a poem of the seventeenth century proves 
that the Tansy cake was regarded as a sweetmeat :— 

‘* At stool-ball, Lucia, let us play, 
For sugar cakes or wine ; 
Or for a Tansy let us pay, 

The loss be thine or mine.” 
It is probable that the flavour of Tansy was more generally liked in former 
times than in ours. Gerarde says: ‘In the spring-time are made with the 
leaves hereof, newly sprung up, and with eggs, cakes or tansies, which be 
pleasant in taste, and goode for the stomacke. The roote preserved with 
honey or sugar is an especial thing against the gout, if every day for a 
certaine space a reasonable quantitie thereof be eaten fasting.” 

21—2 


164 COMPOSIT.A 


A very good green colouring matter may be extracted from the roots of 
the common Tansy, which the Finlanders use to dye their clothes. Dr. Wither- 
ing says, that if meat be rubbed with the Tansy, the flesh-fly will not touch 
it, but when the meat is afterwards eaten, it will probably require the aid of 
some strong condiment to remove the flavour left by the plant. Tansy wine 
is a favourite village medicine for children, and is a good stomachic bitter. 
In Scotland it is much used as a cure for the gout. The French call the 
plant Tanasie ; the Germans, Reinfahren ; the Dutch, Reinevaren ; the Italians, 
Tanaceti ; the Portuguese, Tanasia. Most of these names are corruptions of 
the word Athanasia, which signifies that which cannot perish, but of which 
the application is not obvious. 

One of the prettiest plants in the garden in the month of April is a variety 
of this herb, called Curled Tansy. Its beauty at that early season is a great 
addition to the garden border, as its green is of the most lively hue, and no 
leaf which grows can better deserve the epithet of feathery. In olden 
times, no garden would have been complete without its clump of Tansy :— 


‘¢ And where the marjoram once, and sage, and rue, 
And balm, and mint, with curl’d-leaf parsley grew, 
And double marigolds, and silver thyme, 

And pumpkins ‘neath the window climb ; 

And where I oftev, when a child, for hours 

Tried through the pales to get the tempting flowers, 
As lady’s laces, everlasting peas, 

True love-lies-bleeding, with the hearts-at-ease, 
And golden rods, and Tansy running high, 

That o’er the pale-tops smiled on passers-by.” 


28. WorMWoOOD, SOUTHERNWOOD, MuGwort (Artemisia). 


1, Field Southernwood (4. campéstris).—Leaves smooth above, silky 
beneath, once or twice pinnate, with narrow pointed segments; stems 
prostrate before flowering ; scales of the involucre with a thin white edge ; 
perennial. This is a very rare plant, growing on sandy heaths in Norfolk 
and Suffolk, bearing yellow flowers in August and September. The involucre 
is of purplish-brown colour, and the slender flowering stem is one or two feet 
long. 

2. Common Mugwort (4. vulgaris). — Leaves pinnatifid, with acute 
segments, white, with down beneath; heads oblong, somewhat racemed ; 
scales of the involucre woolly ; perennial. This plant, which is common on 
waste places by the road-side, or on pebbly beaches, is easily known from 
the other species by its dark green leaves, having, beneath, a thick coating 
of cottony down, in which also the young shoots are quite enveloped. It is, 
too, destitute of that aromatic odour which distinguishes most plants of this 
genus. It was in former days placed in baths, and thought to have great 
effect in relieving the sense of fatigue; and the pilgrim was accustomed to 
lay its leaves in his shoes, in full faith in its etlicacy to strengthen him. 
Pliny said, ‘‘The traveller or wayfaring man that hath the herb tied about 
him, feeleth no weariness at all; and he can never be hurt by poisonous 
medicine, by any wild beast, neither by the sun itself.” It is no wonder a 


] FIELD SOUTHERNWOOD. 
Artemisia campestris 
Z COMMON MUGWORT 


(e] 


COMMON WORMWOOD 
A .absinthium 
4: SEA WORMWOOD 


A vulgaris. A maritima. 


oO 


BLUISH MUGWORT, 


A. certlescens. 


Pl, 12h. 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 165 


“herb of vertue” like this should have been used for the purpose of incanta- 
tions, as some lines of Michael Drayton’s lead us to infer that it was :— 
‘« There is my moly of much fame, 
In magic often used ; 
Mugwort and nightshade for the same, 
But not by me abused.’ 

This plant is tonic and stimulating, and is used in some places with hops 
in brewing, and is said to increase the intoxicating properties of ale. Its 
chief use, however, is in the down of its leaves, which in former days, when 
light was usually procured by flint and steel, made good tinder, and which 
is still employed in some countries in surgical operations. ‘The substance 
called Moza is made sometimes either of this down, or of that on the 
Artemisia sinénsis, and is in much use among surgeons in the Kast. It is in 
Japan prepared by rubbing the dried tops and leaves of this plant between 
the hands until the fine woody fibres are the only portion left of the leaf. 

The Mugwort bears, from July to September, clusters of small yellowish 
flowers, sometimes tinted with a rich reddish-purple colour. Its stem is often 
three feet high, and it generally grows in masses. It is readily eaten by 
cattle and sheep. This species, as well as several others which grow on 
alpine heights, near to the region of eternal snows, is included by the Swiss 
under the general name of Genipa. ‘These plants are highly prized by the 
mountaineers for their medicinal properties, and believed to be a balm for 
almost every mortal ill. 

Referring to our Mugwort, Lupton, in his “ Notable Things,” says: “It 
is certainly commonly aftirmed, that on Midsummer Eve there is found 
under the roote of Mugwort a coal which keeps safe from the plague, 
carbuncle, lightning, and the quartan ague them that bear the same about 
them ; and Mizaldus, the writer hereof, saith that it is to be found the same 
day, under the roote of plantaine; which I know for a truth, tor I have 
found them the same day, under the roote of plantaine, which is especially 
and chiefly to be found at noon.” Several respectable authors of that 
period held the same notion; but Paul Barbette, writing in 1675, says, 
“These authors are deceived, for they are not coales, but old acid rootes, 
consisting of much volatile salt, and are almost always to be found under 
Mugwort; so that it is only a certain superstition that old dead roots 
ought to be pulled up on the Eve of St. John the Baptist about twelve at 
night.” 

3. Common Wormwood (4. abs/nthiuwm).—Leaves twice pinnatifid, 
with bluntish segments, covered with soft silky down; heads hemispherical, 
drooping; perennial. This bushy plant, with its silky stems and leaves. 
bears its leafy panicle of dull yellow flowers from July to September. The 
stem is about a foot or a foot and a half high, and the whole plant is bitter 
and aromatic. It grows in waste places, especially near towns and villages, 
and is used in various ways as a medicine by country people, though the 
medical practitioner generally employs the cultivated plant. The upper part 
of the stem and the unexpanded flowers are the useful portions of the herb. 
They are bitter, and contain in a great degree the usual aroma of the worm- 
woods ; the lower part of the plant, though aromatic, possessing little of the 


166 COMPOSITA& 


bitter principle. The distilled water of this species, called Hau d’ Absinthe, 
is used in Switzerland as a condiment to various kinds of food, and also as a 
liqueur. It becomes milky when water is mingled with it, and it is a common 
practice to drink small quantities of this liquid with tokay. The seeds of 
this wormwood are used by rectifiers of British spirits, and those who suffer 
the consequences of indulging in too luxurious a diet find its renovating and 
tonic powers of much service; hence a preparation of the plant known as 
Créme d’ Absinthe is in great request among epicures. The plant is also 
occasionally steeped in wine, a practice which is thought to have been derived 
from the ancients, who mingled wormwood in their luscious wines or used it 
before or after drinking them, in order to counteract their effect. The seeds 
are also employed in Scotland by the distillers of whisky, and the flowers 
have been sometimes used in making malt liquors. The beverage called purl 
is said to be also seasoned with wormwood. Pieces of wormwood are often 
hung up in cottages to drive away insects ; and the old lines on the subject 
may be praised for their useful advice, if not for their elegance :— 
‘“ While wormwood hath seede get a handful or twaine, 

To save against March, to make them refraine ; 

Where chamber is sweeped, and Wormwood is throwne, 

No flea for his life dare abide to be knowne.” 

The Common Southernwood of the garden, which we so seldom see in 
flower in this country, is the Artemisia abrotana of the south of Europe. Its 
strong odour renders it so obnoxious to insects, that country people often 
place it in their chests and drawers to keep away moth. Hence the French 
call the plant Garde-robe ; and its medical virtues were once thought so 
valuable, that its specific name is derived from the Greek words signifying 
preservative of life. Artemisia dracunculus is the Estragon of the French, the 
Dragon of the German, and the Tarragon of the English. Its young shoots 
form an excellent pickle, and are used to flavour fish sauces and vinegar. 

We read in Scripture of the “ wormwood and the gall” as types of bitter- 
ness of spirit, of anguish or remorse, but none of our British wormwoods 
are among the wild flowers of Palestine. Three species, however, grow 
there by the waysides and in fields, as some of ours do, and the Judzan 
Wormwood (A. judiéica), which occurs in great plenty in the neighbourhood 
of Bethlehem, is most likely to be the plant intended by the prophet 
Jeremiah, when he declared that those who had forsaken the law of the 
Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, should be fed with wormwood, and have 
water of gall to drink. The common Garden Southernwood, which is a 
small shrub with us, grows to a large size in the Holy Land, bearing its 
nodding yellow flowers in profusion; and the Artemisia romana has been 
observed by botanists on Mount Tabor, but being neither so general nor so 
powerfully bitter, is less likely to be the plant which served as a figure for 
the Scripture writers. 

On some parts of the American prairies, as on the Steppes of the Missouri, 
a species of Wormwood (A. gnaphaloides) is most abundant ; all other plants 
are far surpassed in number by this, which is spread nearly over the whole 
district, and often, together with the prairie grass, covers wide tracts almost 
exclusively. 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 167 


4. Sea Wormwood (4. maritima).—Upper leaves pinnatifid, lower 
ones twice pinnate, downy on both sides ; heads racemed, oblong—in one 
form the racemes are drooping, in another variety they are erect ; perennial. 
Those who live near the sea or salt rivers, and are accustomed to roam over 
the salt marshes in the neighbourhood, well know this plant as the one which 
gives a grey tint to the soil. Sometimes it grows on these places only in 
patches, but in some salt marshes it extends over a great part of the surface, 
and sends up an odour so strong and so like that of the garden southern- 
wood, that one cannot mistake its affinity. It is one of the plants which the 
botanist terms social, because never found growing singly, but always in 
numbers. Everyone who glances around a meadow, and at the hedges that 
bound it, or the streams which diversify it, will see that there are plants 
which always grow in masses, and thus give a peculiar aspect to the vegeta- 
tion. Some are pre-eminently social, like the grasses of the meadow, or the 
reeds which border the stream, or the thick bog moss (Sphagnum palistre) 
which forms a turfy carpet among the waters of the soft ground, or that 
moorland moss, the glaucous dicranum, which in autumn grows in turfy 
patches on the soil. This social growth of plants generally contributes largely 
to the beauty of the landscape, though there are cases, as in lands covered 
with a vast extent of heather, where at some seasons of the year it may 
produce a monotonous and dreary aspect. It is, however, a circumstance of 
great importance to the welfare of man, enabling him the more readily to 
cultivate plants in masses ; and the glowing fields of ripening corn in summer, 
as well as the emerald meads of spring giving their beauty and fertility to 
the landscape, attest the value of the social growth of plants. 

The Sea Wormwood is rare in Scotland, but very general in marshes in 
England, abounding sometimes on the shores of rivers, as on those of the 
Medway in Kent. It has greenish flowers from July to September, ona stem 
about a foot high, whole masses of the plant being of one uniform grey-green 
hue. A plant called Bluish Sea Wormwood (4. ceruléscens), which has hoary 

‘leaves, the upper ones undivided, the lower ones lobed, is described as having 
been found, some years since, near Boston in Lincolnshire, and at Portsmouth ; 
but this was probably only a variety of 4. maritima. ‘The French call the 
Wormwood JL’ Absinthe ; the Germans, Wermuth; the Dutch Alsem; the 
Italians, Assenzio ; the Russians, Polin. In Nepal, Wormwood was brough 
to Dr. Hooker, to form a couch for his night’s repose. ; 


29. Hemp AGRiMoNY (Lupatérium). 


Common Hemp Agrimony (E£. canniébinum).—Leaves opposite, 
slightly stalked, downy, 3—5-cleft, deeply serrated, the middle segment 
the largest ; flowers terminal, in corymbs; perennial. This plant is very 
common on the borders of rivers, in moist woods, and other damp places ; 
also on sea-cliffs. It is a tall and conspicuous, but not handsome plant, the 
foliage being of a dull dusty-looking green, and the dense clusters of small 
flesh-coloured flowers are also of a dingy hue. These appear in July and 
August, and are very extensively patronised by the butterflies known as 
Painted Ladies, Red Admirals, and Peacocks, who may be found in suitable 
localities to swarm upon them. The flowers are succeeded by the tufts of 


168 COMPOSIT 


down which surmount the seeds. The stems are three or four feet high, 
much branched, and the plant often grows in great numbers among reeds 
and sedges. It has a slightly aromatic odour, like that of resin, and it is 
bitter to the taste. It was formerly much used as a medicine, and an old 
herbalist says it was called Hupatorium or Hepatorium, because it strengthens 
the liver; but Pliny deduces its name from Eupator, the King of Pontus. 
It was also termed Water Hemp. An infusion of this plant is a common 
medicine among the turf-diggers in Holland in some of those disorders to 
which their occupation renders them liable ; but the plant should not be taken 
in any form by persons ignorant of disease, as it has very powerful properties. 
It makes, when infused in wine, a very aromatic medicine, which, mingled 
with honey, is often prescribed by French physicians for coughs. Some of 
the species are in other countries very extensively used as remedial agents. 
Nya-pana is the vernacular name of a kind which grows on the banks of the 
river Amazon, and is much used medicinally by the natives ; and the Per- 
foliate Hemp Agrimony has long had a high reputation in pulmonary 
affections. A dissertation on the subject was published by an American 
physician some years since, by which it appeared that the medical properties 
of the plant reside chiefly in the foliage Another species, called now 
Mikania guaco, was so much praised in South America as an antidote to the bite 
of poisonous serpents, that it was hoped it would prove useful in cases of 
hydrophobia, but it does not seem to have realized the expectation. 

Our common Hemp Agrimony was formerly said to prevent, and even to 
cure, the mouldiness of bread, if laid near the loaves. The Agrimony is 
called in France L’Eupatorie ; in Germany, Abkraut ; in Holland, Boelkenskruid. 
It is the Hupatorie of the Spaniards and Italians, and the Russians term it 
Griwa Kouskaja. 

30. GOLDY-LOCKS (Linosyi7s). 


Flax-leaved Goldy-locks (L. vulgdris).—Leaves narrow, undivided, 
and smooth; scales of the involucre loosely spreading; perennial. This 
very rare plant, a native of limestone cliffs, is about a foot or a foot and 
a half high, with erect unbranched stems, bearing at their summits, from 
August to September, a few yellow flowers. The leaves are narrow, much 
like those of the flax, crowded on the stems, and, when handled, emitting 
a very pleasant aromatic odour. It was formerly called Chrysdécoma, which 
name was taken from the Greek, and signifies gold-hair, in allusion to its 
tufts of yellow flowers. Several of the Continental names, like our English 
one, have the same meaning. The Germans call it Das Goldhaar ; the Danes, 
Guldhaar ; the Dutch term it Proukbloem ; the Italians and Spaniards, Criso- 
coma; and the French, Crisocome. It is also known to botanists as Aster 


linosyris. 
31. EVERLASTING (Antenndria). 
1. Mountain Everlasting, or Cat’s-foot (4. dioica).—Stamens and 
pistils on separate plants; barren stems prostrate, flowering stems erect, 


without branches ; root-leaves oblong, gradually tapering at the base, woolly 
beneath, stem-leaves closely pressed, and very narrow; perennial. One 


| 


2, 


CONMON HEMP AGRIMONY 
Enpatorimm cannabinum 
FLAX-LEAVED GOLDILOCKS 


Lanosyris vulgaris 


Jeti 


L 


MOUNTAIN EVERLASTING 
Antennaria dioica 
PEARLY EVERLASTING 


A marégaritacea . 


; COMPOUND FLOWERS 169 


form of this plant has its leaves greenish and smooth above, when old; 
another (var. hyperborea) has the leaves woolly on both sides. This species is 
found very commonly on mountainous heaths. It is a pretty little plant, 
from three to six inches high, the under sides of the leaves being completely 
covered with cottony down. The flowers, which appear in July and August, 
are very pretty; their white or rose-coloured involucres are of a chaffy 
nature, like that of the garden Everlasting. 

2. Pearly Everlasting (4. margaritdcea).—Stems erect, branched above, 
herbaceous, woolly ; leaves slender and pointed, cottony, especially beneath ; 
heads of flowers in level-topped corymbs ; stamens and pistils on separate 
plants; scales of the involucre white and blunt; perennial. This is a 
much larger species than the last, and is not truly wild, though found in 
moist meadows in various parts of England and Ireland, as in the neighbour- 
hood of Bocking, in Essex. It has long been commonly cultivated in our 
gardens, where it is called White Everlasting, and it is a very pretty addition 
to the winter bouquet, long retaining much of its beauty. Gerarde calls it 
Cotton-weed, and speaking of an allied species, the Alpine Antennaria, says : 
“The flower being gathered when it is young, may be kept insuch manner as 
it was gathered, I meane in such freshness and well-liking, by the space of a 
whole yeare : wherefore our English women have called it Livelong, or Live- 
for-ever, which name doth aptly answer his effects.” Our Pearly Cudweed 
was also called Chafeweed in Yorkshire, because, according to Dr. Turner, it 
was useful to cure the chafed skin. It is slightly bitter and mucilaginous, 
and has been recommended as a demulcent in pectoral complaints. In Wales 
it is commonly selected as a flower with which to deck the grave. It is 
common in many parts of North America. Kalm says of it that it grows in 
astonishing quantities about Pennsylvania upon all uncultivated fields, glades, 
and hills. Its height, he says, is different according to its soil and situation. 
Sometimes it is very much branched, and at others very little so. He adds: 
“Tt has a strong but agreeable smell. The English call it Lite Everlasting ; 
for its flowers, which consist chiefly of dry, shining, silvery leaves, do not 
change when dried. The English ladies were used to gather great quantities, 
and to pluck them with the stalks; for they put them into pots, with or 
without water, among other fine flowers, which they had gathered both in the 
gardens and the fields, and placed them as an ornament in the rooms. The 
English ladies are much inclined to have fine flowers all the summer long, in 
or upon the chimneys, sometimes on a table, or before the windows, either on 
account of their fine appearance, or for the sake of their sweet scent. The 
grass above mentioned was one of those they kept in their rooms during 
winter, because its flowers never altered from what they were when they 
stood in the ground. Mr. Bartram told me another use of this plant. A 
decoction of the flowers and stalks is used to bathe any pained or bruised 
part, or it is rubbed with the plant itself tied up in a bag.” 


32. CUDWEED (Gnaphdlium). 


1. Jersey Cudweed (G. luteo-dlbum).—Stems simple, branched from the 
base ; leaves somewhat clasping, narrow, waved, woolly on both sides, lower 


ones blunt; heads in crowded leafy corymbs; annual. This species is 
11,— 22 


170 COMPOSIT Ai 


found not only in the Channel Islands, but, though rarely, in Norfolk, 
Suffolk, Sussex, and Cambridgeshire. It has in July and August yellowish 
and conspicuous flowers, tinged with red. The stem is from three to twelve 
inches high, prostrate below, and woolly. 

2. Highland Cudweed (G4. sylvdticum).—Stem simple, nearly erect, 
downy ; heads axillary, in a leafy spike; leaves narrow, lanceolate, and 
downy ; perennial. In the usual form of this species the leaves are 
nearly smooth above, and the spikes are interrupted; in the sub-species, 
G. norvegicum, the leaves are lanceolate and woolly on both sides. The latter 
formis rare, and is found chiefly on Scottish mountains ; the former is a very 
common plant in Scottish groves and thickets, as well as in England and 
Treland, and, notwithstanding its specific distinction, is not confined to the 
Highlands. It has spikes of yellow flowers from July to September, the 
little blossoms being almost hidden by the cottony leaves growing among 
them. Its height is from three inches to a foot or a foot and a half, and the 
scales of the involucre are oblong, with a broad brown border. The name 
of Gnaphalium, by which Dioscorides described a plant with soft white leaves 
that served the purpose of cotton, and which may possibly have been identical 
with some plant of this genus, is, like the old English names of Dwarf-cotton 
and Cotton-weed, by no means inappropriate. The French term the Cud- 
weed Gnaphale ; the Germans, Ruhrpflanze; the Dutch, Droogbloeme ; the 
Italians and Spaniards, Gnafalio. The Cudweeds, as well as the plants of 
the genus Antennaria, are included in the name of Everlasting, because of 
the durable nature of the chaffy scales of their flowers. Pliny says that the 
Cudweed was called Chamezelon, signifying low-ground cotton ; and that it 
was sometimes named Albinum, from the whiteness of its leaves and stalks. 
The cotton picked from the foliage was used by the ancients instead of wool, 
for filling couches and mattresses. The plant sometimes grown in our green- 
houses, and called Gnaphdlium oriéntale, is a native of Africa. Our gardeners 
term it Everlasting Love, and it is La flew immortelle of the French. None 
who have ever visited Pére la Chaise can have failed to observe the wreaths 
sold at the entrance of the cemetery for visitors to place on the tombs of 
those whom they have loved and honoured in life, or whose names are dear 
because associated with history, poetry, or science. Not a tomb of any note 
is there unadorned ; and some whose names were unknown beyond the little 
circle of love which their virtues had drawn around them, still live in loving 
memories, and have the yellow wreaths lying in numbers on the spot where 
their remains are entombed. Many graves are almost covered with the 
garlands of Immortelles; and while the fadeless flower may serve as an 
emblem of love which is not to fade, so, too, the flowers planted on the sod 
of the “early lost and long deplored” may remind the thoughtful of the 
perishing nature of youth and beauty, while their renewed bloom may suggest 
the idea of the resurrection of those loved remains. Such emblems are 
needed in the cemetery of Pere Ja Chaise; for while the monuments are 
inscribed with touching laments for the departed, there are few words traced 
there which point hopefully to the hour of meeting in heaven, which make 
even the faintest allusion to the rising again of the perishing body. It is 
thought by many writers that some species of Gnaphalium were used by the 


TERSEY CUDWEED 


Gnaphalium luteoalbum 
HIGHLAND ey 
G. sylvaticum 
MARSH S 
G. uhgimesum 
7 COMMON F 


FE germamica 


Pl, 126, 


4 


6 


DWARF 


NARROW 


LEAST 


E 


Cc 


Ga 


supilnuMm 


LEAVED FILAGO 
Filago gallica 


F 


is 


minima 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 171 


ancients among the flowers with which they decked the images of their gods ; 
and it is not unlikely that the Everlastings were also placed about the tombs, 
though we know that purple and white flowers were anciently believed to 
be most acceptable to the dead. In Spain and Portugal these Immortelles 
are still used to decorate altars and images ; but neither there nor in France, 
nor in the bouquet which often decks the English mantelpiece, are they left 
to their own natural beauty—the pale yellow flowers being often stained with 
green, black, or orange colour, and thus becoming strangely artificial in their 
appearance. In France many families are supported by staining these flowers 
and making them up into garlands and crosses. 

It is not known at what period this African Cudweed first appeared in 
England. Gerarde says that it was brought hither in a dried state in his 
day ; and it appears from Parkinson that it was well known in England about 
twenty years after the publication of Gerarde’s celebrated Herbal. Gerarde 
calls it Golden Motherwort, and says of the flowers that “they are on the 
top of a long stalke, joyned together in tufts of a yellow colour, glittering 
like golde, in forme resembling the scalie flowers of tansie.” He says that 
“being gathered before they be ripe, they remaine beautiful a long time, as 
myselfe did see in the handes of Master Wade, one of the Clerkes of hir 
Majestie’s Counsell, which was sent him among other things from Padua, in 
Italie.” 

3. Marsh Cudweed (G4. wliginéswm).—Stem spreading, much branched, 
woolly ; leaves narrow, lanceolate, and downy ; heads in dense tufts, which 
are shorter than the leaves; annual. This is a common species, inhabiting 
sandy places, or spots where water has stood. It is a small plant, rarely 
more than three or four inches high, its stem and foliage white with 
cottony down. In August and September the heads of flowers grow two or 
three together, among the crowded leaves: their scales are glossy and chaffy, 
and yellowish-brown. 

4, Dwarf Cudweed (G. swpinum).—Stem prostrate, branching only 
from the base ; flowering stems bearing from one to five flowers; leaves 
narrow and tufted; perennial. There are two varieties of this plant, in 
_ one of which the heads are stalked and rather distant ; in the other, they 
are sessile and close together. The species is abundant on Highland 
mountains, and is usually about two or three inches high, its flowering stems 
almost bare of leaves. The yellowish flowers appear in July and August. 


33. FiLaco (Fildgo). 


1. Narrow-leaved Filago (/. gédllica).—Stem erect, forked; leaves 
narrow and pointed ; heads crowded in axillary and terminal tufts, which are 
shorter than the leaves; involucres broad at the base, the outer scales 
cottony, with bluntish, smooth points; annual. This plant, which is found, 
though very rarely, on sandy and gravelly fields, has small oblong heads of 
flowers in leafy clusters on a slender leafy stem about six inches high. The 
leaves, which narrow upwards from the base, are upright, and finally turn 
back. The florets are yellowish. The plant has been found at Berechurch, 
in Essex, at one or two places in Kent, in Herts, Bucks, and the Channel 
Islands. 


172 COMPOSITA 


2. Least Filago (F. i/nima).—Stem erect, with forked branches ; leaves 
narrow, lanceolate and pointed, flat, closely pressed ; heads conical, in lateral 
aud terminal clusters, longer than the leaves; scales cottony, smooth, and 
slightly blunt at the point; annual. This is a common species of dry 
and gravelly places, perhaps not truly distinct from the preceding. The 
yellowish heads of flowers, which appear from June to September, are very 
small, and the whole plant is of a greyish colour, and enveloped in cottony 
down. Its stem is slender, and from two to six inches high. 

3. Common Filago (/. germdnica).—Stem erect, usually many-flowered 
at the summit; leaves downy ; heads terminal, and in the axils of the 
branches, somewhat globose ; scales of the involucre cottony, with smooth 
points; annual. There are several varieties of this plant. One has the 
heads scarcely angled, the scales of the involucre of yellowish-white, and 
the leaves oblong or lanceolate. Another has the heads larger, five-angled, 
the scales purplish towards the tip, the leaves lanceolate, tipped with a spine, 
grass-green, but with a yellowish down: this is called by some writers 
F. apiculata. Another form, with the heads prominently five-angled, scales 
yellowish white, leaves of a leaden grey colour, and tapering at the base, is 
by some botanists termed /F. spathulata. The Common Filago is a very 
frequent and singular little plant, having at the top of its cottony stem a 
globular assemblage of heads, from the base vf which arise two or more 
flower-stalks, which are prolific in the same manner. The old herbalists on 
this account called this the wicked or impious herb (Herba impia), as if the 
young shoots were undutiful to the parent stem by exalting themselves 
above it. The plant is about six or eight inches high, and flowers in June 
and July. It grows on heaths and dry gravelly places, and in some of its 
forms has a faint odour, resembling that of Tansy. 


34. BUTTER-BUR (Petasites). 


Common Butter-bur (P. wulgiéris)—Leaves roundish, heart-shaped 
at the base, unequally toothed, downy beneath ; perennial. In tracing the 
course of some of those streamlets which sparkle among the bright grass 
of the summer meadow, or in selecting some quiet little nook of beauty by 
the riverside, which would serve well for the painter, how often have we 
paused by some spot enriched by the snowy blossoms of the meadow sweet 
and the purple flowers of the willow herb, where large masses of the leaves 
of the Butter-bur lying on the water’s brink made an admirable foreground 
to the picture! The young duckling from the pool was perchance sheltering 
itself beneath the broad canopy which served as a screen from sun or passing 
shower. Even the willow wren, whose wings, one would imagine, might waft 
it far enough into the very heart of a wood, sought at such moments the 
ready shelter of this large broad leaf. As an old herbalist once said of it, 
the leaf is large enough to form the cover for a small table; and we have 
seen these green leaves standing on thick stalks a foot long, and very nearly 
three feet broad. But though the artist would look on their masses with 
delighted eyes, yet the owner of the pasture land would by no means respond 
to his pleasure. This plant is the most troublesome of all waterside weeds, 
its long root creeping far into the soil. It so multiplies the plant in wet 


COMMON BUTTER BUR 3 CANADA FLEA BANE 


Petasites vulgaris Erigeron canadensis 
COLTS Foot 4 BLUE FLEA BANE 
Tussilago farfara. BH. acris 


5 ALPINE FLEA BANE 
E, alpinus 


levied 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 173 


meadows, that Mr. Curtis says, a piece of this rootstock, only two inches 
long, and the thickness of his little finger, was dug up, after being planted 
eighteen months, when it appeared that many shoots had extended to the 
length of six feet, and penetrated two feet in depth, while the whole mass 
weighed eight pounds. The rootstock, which is white, with a thick black skin, 
abounds in a resinous matter, and has a strong resinous odour, and a bitter 
and acrid flavour. It was formerly used as a medicine in fevers, and was 
believed to be so efficacious in the cure of the plague, that one of the old 
names of the plant was Pestilence-wort. ‘It is under the dominion of the 
sun,” says an old writer, “and, therefore, a great strengthener of the heart 
and cheerer of the vital spirits.” He adds: “It were well if gentlewomen 
would keepe this roote preserved, to help their poore neighbours. It is fit 
the rich should help the poore, for the poore cannot help themselves.” The 
art of preparing and preserving medical herbs seems to have been a common 
accomplishment of the ladies of the olden times, and it is pleasant to think 
of our female ancestors as employed in making the old unguents and decoc- 
tions derived from plants, and dispensing them among the sufferers; for we 
know well that these acts would tend to promote kindly and charitable 
feeling, and that the gift of the medicine would in all probability be accom- 
panied by some word of sympathy, which might heal the wounded spirit, as 
surely as the herbal medicament should help the bodily ailment. 

The stamens and pistils of the Butter-bur usually occur in the flowers of 
separate plants, and the plant bearing the fertile flowers is generally smaller, 
and has a less dense spike of blossoms, than the stout sturdy barren flower. 
The corollas are of pale flesh colour; and they expand during April and 
May, before the leaves, which begin to unfold just as the feathery down of 
the seeds is clustering on the flower-stalk, or shortly after that has been 
wafted away by the winds. The stalk has, at the time of flowering, swelling 
leaf-stalks, which are either leafless or have a small leaf-like piece. The 
Swedes place this plant near their beehives, because of its early flowering ; 
but it has the disadvantage of overpowering all herbaceous plants near it. 
The species so frequent in our gardens and shrubberies, and often called 
Spring Coltsfoots, are the Petasttes dlba and P. fragrans of the botanist. 
Their fragrant blooms quite scent the vernal air; but the plant has the same 
tendency as the wild species to extend by its creeping roots over a large 
space of ground. The odour, which is so delicious in the open air, is too’ 
powerful for a room; and the masses of leaves have a good appearance in 
the shrubbery, but so cover the ground as to exclude all lesser plants. 
P. fragrans, commonly known as Winter Heliotrope, is thoroughly naturalized 
in many parts of South Cornwall, where extensive patches may be seen grow- 
ing along green road-sides, as well as up and over the high hedge-banks. It 
has also obtained a permanent footing beside the Thames between Kew and 
Richmond. 


2. THE Daisy Group (Radiate). 
35. COLTSFOOT (Zussildgo). 


Coltsfoot (7. fdrfara).—Stalk single-flowered, with scales crowded upon 
it; leaves angular, heart-shaped, toothed, white and cottony beneath ; 


174 COMPOSITA 


perennial. This flower, which is one of the earliest blossoms of spring, 
is somewhat like the dandelion in form and colour, but much smaller, and 
standing up alone on the soil, without the leaf to serve as contrast to its 
bright gold. Bishop Mant has well described it :-— 
‘‘O’er sealy stem, with cottony down 

O’erlaid, its lemon-colour’d crown 

Which droop’d unclosed, but now erect, 

The Coltsfoot bright develops, deck’d, 

Ere yet the impurpled stalk displays 

Its dark-green leaves, with countless rays 

Round countless tubes alike in dye 

Expanded : but, howe’er the eye 

Its tint may prize, no fragrant smells 

It nourishes in nectar’d cells.” 

The flowers of the Coltsfoot expand on moist, clayey, and limestone soils, 
too abundantly, in March and April, and during the latter month the large 
angular-edged leaves of pale green, with white under surfaces, are just un- 
folding to view, and lie in masses in the later seasons by field or on road-side. 
The Coltsfoot is the first plant which vegetates on marl or limestone rubble ; 
and the banks by many of our railway cuttings are often covered with the 
flowers long before other plants have found time to flourish there. The 
clayey soil of the pestilential Maremmas of Tuscany, where scarcely any 
other herb is to be seen, is sometimes decked for a vast extent with this. It 
is a most noxious weed on some of our native soils, for every part of the 
rootstock will produce a plant. Even if a small piece remain buried three or 
four feet deep, it will soon vegetate, send up a stem to the surface, and spread 
with singular rapidity. It ought never, on valuable land, to be allowed to 
produce flowers or expand leaves; and the best mode of extirpating it is to 
cut off the crown of the plant in March. 

The flowering stem of the Coltsfoot is about five or six inches high, rising 
directly from the root, and the scale-like bracts with which it is clothed are 
often of a purplish hue, as are the drooping unexpanded flower-buds. The 
plant has its name from tussis, a cough ; and we trace this origin in several 
of its continental names. Thus, the Italians call it Tossalaggine ; the French, 
Tussilage ; the Spaniards, the Tusilago. The Germans term it Hujlattich, and 
the Dutch, Hoefblad. The plant has, for many centuries, been used medicin- 
ally in pulmonary disease ; it is bitter and demulcent, and a decoction is 
still often used to sooth irritation in the air passages; while until within the 
last few years, Coltsfoot lozenges were commonly sold for coughs. The 
plant has also, even from the days of Dioscorides, been smoked through a 
reed, to relieve pain; and the leaves are said to form the basis of the British 
herb-tobacco. The cottony down has been sometimes used for filling cushions 
and pillows, and, saturated with saltpetre, formerly served as tinder. The 
Coltsfoot, though still retaining a place in the Materia Medica, is now little 
used. 


36. FLEA-BANE (Lrigeron). 


1. Canada Flea-bane (E£. canadénsis).—Stem much branched, hairy, 
many-flowered ; leaves narrow, lanceolate, fringed with hairs; ray of flower 
shorter than the involucre; annual. This is not a common plant, though 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 175 


found on heaths and on gravelly or chalky waste places in several parts 
of the kingdom. It is, however, a naturalized, and not an indigenous 
plant, having been first introduced from Canada into gardens near Paris, 
whence its downy seeds soon found their way all over France, and afterwards 
to Sicily, Italy, Belgium, Germany, and England. It is a dull-looking plant, 
with small heads of dingy flowers in July and August; the florets of the 
disk being of a yellowish, and those of the ray of a whitish hue, more or less 
tinged with red. The stem is one or two feet high, much branched, and 
panicled with numerous flowers. The Flea-bane has the repute of driving 
away insects; but the name refers to some exotic species, which by their 
strong odour annoy, or by their viscid stems and foliage entangle, the insects 
approaching them. A very powerfully fetid species, H. philudelphicum, is a 
medicine of some importance in America. Our wild Flea-banes are of little 
use ; but the ashes, both of this and the following species, yield five or six 
per cent. of vegetable alkali; and the latter plant has some active principles. 
The French call the Flea-bane La Vergerette, and the Germans, Das Scharfe. 
It is in Holland called Scherp fynstraal, and in Spain, Olivardilla. 

2, Blue Flea-bane (Z£. dcris).—Stem corymbose, branches alternate ; 
leaves narrow, lanceolate, entire, spreading, lower ones tapermg below ; 
ray erect, scarcely longer than the disk ; inner pistillate florets threadlike 
and numerous; biennial. This is a local plant, found on heaths and 
chalky or gravelly waste places. It produces its small flowers in July and 
August, the florets of the disk being yellowish, and the slender rays of dull 
bluish-lilac. The stem is about a foot ora foot and a half high, and the 
whole plant very rough to the touch. The down which invests the seeds 
after the plant has flowered is of a dull brownish-yellow colour. 

3. Alpine Flea-bane (Z. alpinus).—Stem mostly single-flowered ; leaves 
lanceolate, lower ones tapering at the base ; ray spreading, twice as long as 
the disk; perennial. This is a plant of Highland rocks, and has a stem 
from three to five inches in height, the flower with a yellow disk and lght 
purple ray, and the involucre hairy. 


37. Srarwort, MICHAELMAS Datsy (Aster). 


Sea Starwort (4. ¢ripdlium). —Stem smooth, corymbose ; leaves 
narrow, lanceolate, fleshy, smooth ; scales of the involucre lanceolate, blunt, 
membranous, overlapping each other; perennial. During the months of 
July, August, and September, the Michaelmas Daisy is a common ornament 
of the dreary salt-marsh adjoining sea or river. Far as eye can see that flat 
greensward is stretched, little varied either in hue or form by the plants 
growing upon it. At this season, these lilac flowers, with their golden 
centres, are very conspicuous, standing up on a hollow, erect, leafy, succulent 
pale-green stem, one or two feet high. The plant is essentially one of a 
saline soil, growing sometimes on sea-cliffs, and often on the muddy shore 
either of the sea or of rivers. It has been found on the banks of the Thames, 
a little above high water, near Richmond and Kew; and the author once 
found it on a bank on Strood Hill, in Kent, at a distance of more than a 
mile from the salt river Medway ; but it is not often found so far inland. 
Dr. Withering says that the succulent leaves and stems of the plant are not 


176 COMPOSIT AL 


unfrequently gathered and sold for samphire ; but the glass-worts (Salecornie) 
are more often substituted for that plant than are any other seaside productions. 
Animals, though usually so fond of the plants of saline soils, dislike the 
Aster, and neither the cow nor sheep will touch it. Country people call it 
Blue Daisy, Blue Chamomile, and Michaelmas Daisy ; and it is very nearly 
allied to the lilac and purple flowered plants known under the latter name, 
which lend their thousands of starry blooms to deck the autumnal flower- 
garden. The Michaelmas-daisy genus is peculiarly a North American one, 
the woods and fields of that country producing a great variety of these 
plants. The Michaelmas Daisy (Aster tradescintia) was brought into our 
gardens in 1633, by John Tradescant, who with his father visited America 
to procure new flowers for English gardens. The elder of the Tradescants 
was gardener to King Charles I., and collected one of the finest museums of 
natural history ever known in this country. The flowers commemorate the 
name of these useful botanists ; and a large number of allied species have 
been introduced since that period. 

Sir Charles Lyell, when travelling in America, along the road to the 
White Mountains, each side of which had an abundant growth of sweet 
fern, and of the woolly dropwort, with its spike of purplish flowers, says: 
“The name of hard-back was given to this latter plant because the stalks 
turned the edge of the mowers’ scythes. There were gold rods, everlastings, 
and Asters in profusion; one of the Asters being called Frost-blow, because 
flowering after the first frost.” He adds: ‘“ By the side of these indigenous 
plants grew the English self-heal, the mullein, and other flowers, reminding 
me of a remark of an American botanist, that New England has become the 
garden of European weeds.” 

The French call the Aster L’ Astéer ; the Germans, Sternblume ; the 
Dutch, Sterribloem ; the Danes, Stiernblomst; the Italians and Spaniards, 
Aster, The favourite garden flowers known as China asters belong to 
another genus, Callistephus. The Aster acris of the south of Europe, which 
is sometimes found in our gardens, has powerfully acrid properties, and when 
bruised the whole plant has the odour of a carrot. 


38. GOLDEN Rop (Solidago). 


Common Golden Rod (S. virgaiea).—Stem erect, slightly angular ; 
leaves lanceolate, narrowed at both ends, lower ones oval, stalked and 
serrated ; scales of the involucre lanceolate and acute ; perennial. A variety 
of this plant, sometimes termed S. cdémbrica, is small, and has broader 
leaves. During the autumnal months, this flower is the favourite resort of 
the bees. How on a fine October day these insects will hum and hover about 
its mass of golden flowers, which enliven chalky bank or sea-cliff, or linger in 
woods or in thickets by the lane! The brightness of the blossom is relieved 
by the green leaves growing among the clusters ; which are, however, far 
less dense in the wood or hedge than on sunny open places. It grows best 
on the poorest soils, and is abundant on mountainous places, blossoming from 
July till October. This Golden Rod has had its praises sung in former years. 
It was called Wound-weed, and from its healing powers received its scientific 
name, Solidago: Solido or in solidum ago vulnera, “I cons@idate, wounds.” 


1 


2 


SEA STARWORT a COMMON GROUNDSEL 
Aster tripohum Senecio vulgaris 
COMMON GOLDEN ROD + STINKING GROUNDSEL 


v2) 


Solidago virganrea. . . Viscosus 
5. MOUNTAIN GROUNDSEL 


S. sylvaticus . 


Pl. 128. 


COMPOUND FLOWERS Wa 


“Tt is,” says an old herbalist, “a soveraigne wound-herb, inferior to none, 
both for inward and outward hurts.” It was, during the sixteenth century, 
procured at great expense from abroad, for medicinal purposes, though it is 
no longer in use either in this or in continental countries. It doubtless 
possesses some astringent properties, but these seem to be greater in the 
S. odéra of North America, the foliage of which is deliciously fragrant, 
combining the odours of the anise and sassafras. When this plant is subjected. 
to distillation, a volatile oil, having the taste and aroma of the plant ina 
high degree, collects in the receiver; the oil apparently exists in the little 
dots or glands of the leaves. The effects of the oil are aromatic, pleasant to 
the taste, and carminative. Gerarde says of our native Golden Rod: “ It is 
extolled above all the herbes for the stopping of blood, and hath in times 
past been had in greater estimation and regard than in these daies: for 
within my remembrance I have known the drie herbe which came from 
beyond the seas, sold in Bucklersburie in London, for half-a-crown an ounce. 
But since it was found in Hampsteed Woods, even as it were at our towne’s 
end, no man will give half-a-crown for an hundred weight of it; which 
plainly setteth forth our inconstancie and sudden mutabilitie, esteeming 
no longer of anything, how precious soever it be, the whilst it is not strange 
and rare.” 

Though we have but one British species, yet a large number of Golden 
Rods are cultivated in our gardens and shrubberies, either under this name 
or that of Aaron’s Rod. They are, with few exceptions, brought from the 
woods and fields of North America, where this genus abounds. In some 
European regions, however, our native Golden Rod is very abundant, as in, 
the most southern parts of the Highlands of Norway, where this and the 
Molinia cerulea are the predominating plants of vast tracts of country, and 
seem almost to displace all others. The European names of our native plant 
generally allude to its golden blooms: thus the French term it Verge @or ; 
the Germans, Goldruthe ; the Dutch, Goudroede ; the Italians, Verga d’oro ; and: 
the Spaniards, Vara de oro. In Russia it is called Solotoschnik. 


* Florets of the ray rolled back, or wanting. 
39. GROUNDSEL, RAGWORT, FLEAWORT (Senécio). 


1. Common Groundsel (S. vulgdris).—Flowers without rays, in 
crowded clusters; leaves half-clasping the stem, deeply pinnatifid, and 
toothed ; involucre conical, smooth; annual. Those even who are little 
familiar with wild flowers, are acquainted with this, for it grows as a weed 
in every garden, sending its feathered tufts to bear away its seeds far 
around the spots where it grows. ‘The little singing bird, not alone of gilded 
cage, but of bush or tree, welcomes it as a refreshing food ; and owing to its 
numerous seeds, it is everywhere abundant. It has been often used for 
emollient poultices, but its virtues are very questionable. If hot water is 
poured upon the green leaves it certainly, however, renders the liquid soft 
and fitted for soothing the skin irritated by winter’s cold. The Highland 
women often wear a piece of its root asan amulet, regarding it as a protection 
from the “evil eye.” The French call the plant Senecon ; the Germans, 

II.—23 


178 COMPOSIT4 
Kreuzpflanze ; the Dutch, Kruikskruid ; the Spanish, H ierbe can; the 
Italians, Senecione ; the Russians, Krestownek. 

2. Stinking Groundsel (S. viscésus).—Ray rolled back; leaves pinnatifid, 
clammy, and hairy; scales of the involucre loose, hairy ; stem branching, 
spreading; annual. ‘This is a somewhat local plant, occurring on chalky or 
gravelly soils, and bearing dull yellow flowers in July and August. Its 
stem is one or two feet high, and the species is remarkable for its clammy 
hairs and most disagreeable odour. 

3. Mountain Groundsel (8. sylvdlicus).—Ray rolled back, sometimes 
absent ; leaves sessile, pinnatifid, lobed and toothed, often eared at the base ; 
involucre downy, smooth ; stem erect, straight ; annual. This is a common 
plant on gravelly places, rendered very distinct from the last by its larger 
size, as well as by the paler colour of the leaves, which are often quite hoary, 
though its odour is similarly unpleasant. It bears conical heads of dull yellow 
flowers, on a stem one or two feet high, from July to September. 


* * Heads with a spreading ray ; leaves pinnatifid. 


4. Inelegant Ragwort (8. squdlidus).—Ray spreading ; flowers large ; 
leaves smooth, pinnatifid, with distant oblong and toothed segments ; involucre 
smooth, its outer scales few and small; fruit silky ; annual. This is a very 
handsome plant, found on walls and rubbish at Bideford, Devon, and on walls 
in and about Oxford, Warwick and Cork. It is a very marked species, but 
is not truly wild, having been introduced from the Continent. The much- 
branched stem is leafy and smooth, the heads of flowers large, of golden 
yellow, and few in number, expanding from June to November, and having 
many scattered awl-shaped bracts just below them. 

5. Hoary Ragwort (S. tenwifvlius).—Ray spreading; leaves closely 
pinnatifid, pale and downy beneath; stem erect, cottony; fruit hairy ; 
perennial. ‘This plant grows, though by no means frequently, on chalky 
soils, in hedges, and by roadsides. It sends up numerous stems from the 
same root, all covered with loose, cottony down ; its leaves are very regularly 
divided, their margins slightly rolled back. The stem is about two feet high, 
and angular. The yellow flowers appear in July and August, and the root 
creeps far into the soil. 

6. Common Ragwort (S. jacobea).—Ray spreading; leaves lyre-shaped, 
twice pinnatifid ; segments smooth, toothed ; stem erect; fruit of the disk 
hairy, those of the ray smooth; involucre hemispherical; perennial. 
Everyone knows the tall plant with its clusters of handsome golden flowers, 
which, from June to October, gleam on waste places or meadows. The 
blossoms have both disk and ray of a deep yellow colour; each one in the 
cluster being larger than a daisy, and the whole standing on a stem two or 
three feet high, they form a striking feature on the landscape. Notwith- 
standing its luxuriant beauty, it is a great annoyance to the owner of the 
pasture land, for it grows on all soils, and is even more abundant in some 
other countries than in ours. In Kamtschatka it is everywhere one of the 
most ‘common plants. It hasa fleshy root, of a disagreeable odour ; and the 
whole plant has, especially if bruised, an unpleasant scent. Hence, in Scot- 
land, it is commonly known by the name of Stinking Willie. Its stem is 


1. INELEGANT RAGWORT 4. MARSH R 


Senecio sqnalidus S. aquaticus . 

Zh TOARY (Ry: 5 GREAT FEN R 
S.tenuiflorns . S. paludosus . 

3. COMMON R. 6 BROAD LEAVED GROUNDSEL 
S.jacobea . S. saracenicus 


JA IE) 


u 


ia | * tt 


a 
r 


ae 
a 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 179 


marked with slight ridges, and a variety of the plant rarely occurs in which 
the flowers are without rays. 

7. Marsh Ragwort (S. aquaticus).—Ray spreading ; leaves lyre-shaped : 
serrated, smooth, the lowest undivided, and inversely egg-shaped ; involucre 
hemispherical ; fruit smooth; perennial. This species is very much like 
the Common Ragwort, but is plainly distinguished by its less divided leaves. 
The yellow flowers occur, from July to September, on wet places, and by the 
margins of rivers ; they are larger than those of the last species. 


** * Heads with a spreading ray ; leaves undivided, or nearly se. 


8. Great Fen Ragwort (S. paluddsus).—Leaves sessile, somewhat clasp- 
ing, lanceolate, sharply serrate, cottony beneath ; stem straight, hollow, rather 
woolly ; corymbs terminal; bracts awl-shaped; perennial. This is a very 
rare plant of fen ditches. Its stem is from four to six feet high, and both 
flowers and foliage large. Its yellow blossoms expand in June and July, 
having narrow rays from thirteen to sixteen in number. It is found in 
Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and the Channel Islands. 

9. Broad-leaved Ragwort (S. saracénicus).—Leaves sessile, lanceolate, 
acute, smooth, irregularly serrate with small teeth; stem straight, solid ; 
corymbs terminal ; perennial. The yellow flowers of this species are much 
smaller than those of the last, but the florets of the ray are far broader, and 
are about six or seven in number ; these are sometimes wanting. The stem is 
from three to five feet high, and the leaves broad, ‘This plant is an outcast of 
gardens, which has become naturalized by the sides of rivers, and in other wet 
places. It is found on some moist meadows of England, Ireland and Scotland, 
flowering in June and July, but is very local. This plant was esteemed by 
the Saracens as a vulnerary, hence its specific name ; and it was also termed 
Saracens’ Consound, Saracens’ Comfrey, Herba fortis, and by the Dutch, 
Wundkraut. It was probably introduced by the Crusaders, and cultivated in 
the monastery gardens, as most of the places in which it is found are near old 
monastic institutions. It is not often seen in modern gardens, though some 
handsome species of the genus are cultivated. The double-flowered variety 
of S. élegans is a greenhouse favourite ; and a number of the Groundsel family, 
especially those having rays of various purple hues, are common border 
flowers. 'The Groundsels are found of some species or other in every part of 
the world. Humboldt remarks, that they are very numerous in the upper 
regions of the Andes, “just below the limits of eternal snow, where the sun 
has little power, where hurricanes are incessant, and where not a tree is able 
to rear its head.” Gerarde said of the Broad-leaved Ragwort, “It is not 
inferior to any of the wound-herbes whatsoever, being inwardly ministered, 
or outwardly applied in oyntments or oyles.” He also relates how he cured 
by its use a gentleman who was “grievously wounded in the lungs, and that, 
by God’s permission, in a short space.” 

10. Marsh Fleawort (S. palistris). Shaggy ; stem much branched and 
corymbose above ; leaves broadly half-clasping, lower leaves deeply toothed ; 
fruit smooth; perennial. This plant has, in June and July, erect heads 
of bright yellow florets, about twenty forming the ray. Its stem is three or 

23—2 


180 COMPOSIT At 


four feet high, thick, hollow, and leafy. It is a very rare plant of fen ditches, 
chiefly of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. 

11. Field Fleawort (S. campéstris).—Woolly ; stem simple ; root-leaves 
elliptical, narrowed below, nearly entire, those of the stems small, lanceolate; 
flowers in umbels. This plant bears its yellow flowers in May and June. It 
grows on chalky downs in the middle and south of England, and a tall 
variety known as var. maritima occurs on some rocks of the seashore at 
Anglesea. The heads of flowers are erect, from one to six in the cluster ; its 
flowers are often, when near the sea, much larger than on inland specimens. 


40. LEOPARD’S-BANE (Dorédnicum). 


1. Great Leopard’s-bane (D. pardalidnches).—Leaves hairy, heart- 
shaped, toothed, lower ones on long stalks, intermediate, with two broad 
ears at the base, uppermost clasping the stem; fruit of the disk hairy, 
of the ray smooth; perennial. This very rare plant is found on damp 
and hilly pastures among the mountains of Northumberland, at Calton, by 
Norwich ; and it has been found by Mr. Carter in Lord Fitzwilliam’s woods, 
near Peterborough. It occurs in some other places of England, as well as in 
several of Scotland. It bears its yellow flowers from May to July, those 
blooming latest overtopping the earlier ones. The stem is two or three fect 
in height, erect, hollow, hairy, and solitary. The root is tuberous and 
creeping, and is, as well as that of D. plantagineum, believed to possess an 
acrid poison. The species is said to take its name from the Greek pardalio, 
a leopard, and agcho, to strangle, on account of the use made of the plant 
in destroying wild animals. The French call the plant Doronie; the 
Germans, Gemsenwurz; the Dutch, /Volverley ; the Italians, Spaniards, and 
Portuguese term it Doronies. The plant has acquired a painful interest, for 
it is said that Conrad Gesner, who, in his zeal for science, made so many 
experiments on his own person of the properties of plants, shortened his 
existence by the use of this acrid herb. In the “ Historia Plantarum,” 
believed to be written by Boerhaave, it is related that Gesner took some of 
this plant in the morning fasting, and wrote, two hours afterwards, a letter 
to a friend, in which he stated himself to be then in good health. Other 
friends of the naturalist assert that he had not despatched this letter more 
than an hour before he was taken ill and expired. ‘This excellent botanist 
has been called the German Pliny; and Boerhaave termed him that 
“ Monstrum eruditionis.” Matthiolus, who long advocated the medicinal use 
of the Leopard’s-bane, relinquished his opinions on finding that it killed 
a dog to which he gave a dose; but many modern botanists doubt if the 
root is so highly poisonous as it has been represented. The question of its 
dangerous properties is a very old one. Gerarde says: ‘‘ But for the proofe 
of the goodnesse of Doronicum, and the reste of his kinde, knowe also that 
Lobel writeth of one called John de Vroede, who ate very manie of the 
rootes at sundry times, and found them very pleasant in taste, and very com- 
fortable ; and thus,” he says, ‘I leave all controversies.” 

The Leopard’s-bane is very frequent on the mountainous parts of Switzer- 
land, the Alps, Hungary, Germany, and other parts of Europe, but in this 
country it is rather a naturalized than a wild plant. Mr. Lightfoot observes, 


1. MARSH FLEA WORT 3, GREAT LEOPARDS BANE 
Senecio palustris . Doronicum pardsalianches 
2. FIELD FLEA WORT 4.. PLANTAIN LEAVED LEOPARDS BANE 
S. campestris . LD). plantagineum 


Pl, 130, 


\ ab 
ye: a: Hise 


I MN 


a 


abe y 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 181 


that in the few places of Scotland in which he saw it, it always grew near 
houses. It is quite likely to have escaped from cultivation, for as it looks 
well both in gardens and shrubberies, it is often placed there, and propagates 
itself very extensively by its spreading roots. It is an old inhabitant of the 
English garden. Turner, one of our earliest writers on plants, observes of 
it in 1568—“ Doronicum, otherwise called Carnabadium, groweth not, that I 
knowe of, in England ; and that I remember I never saw it growing but 
once, and that was in Germanye.” He adds, that the roots are well known 
in the apothecaries’ shop, and says, “The Arabian commendeth this herbe 
very much agaynst diseases of the herte, and holdes that it is goode agaynst 
poyson and venome.” Gerarde, who had the Leopard’s-bane in his garden, 
tells us that it grows wild in the mountains, and also that it is “brought 
into, and acquainted with, our English gardens.” 

2, Plantain-leaved Leopard’s-bane (D. plantaginewm).— Leaves 
toothed, those from the root or naked stalks egg-shaped, or somewhat heart- 
shaped ; stem-leaves sessile, clasping, the lowermost with a winged and 
eared stalk; perennial. This is also a rare species, found at one or two 
places in Essex, in the Den of Dupplin, and a few other damp places in 
England and Scotland. The stem is either simple or branched, two or three 
feet high ; the yellow heads of flowers on long leafless stalks, usually solitary, 
or if more, the side ones do not, as in the other species, overtop the terminal 
ones. It flowers in June and July. 


41, ELECAMPANE, ETC. (Jnula). 


1. Elecampane (J. heléniwm).—Leaves clasping, unequally toothed, 
wrinkled, downy beneath ; outer scales of the involucre egg-shaped, downy, 
leafy, turning backwards ; ray twice as long as the disk ; fruit quadrangular, 
smooth; root perennial. This very handsome but rare plant is found 
occasionally in moist pastures in England and Ireland, but is not wild in 
Scotland. It has a stout stem, from three to five feet high, with large leaves 
and bright yellow flowers of the size of small sunflowers. The leaves are 
bitter and aromatic, and the roots much more so. These contain a white, 
starch-like powder, termed inulin, a volatile oil, a soft acrid resin, and a 
bitter extract, and they furnish the celebrated Vin d’Aulnée of the French, 
so largely used in pectoral complaints. This same inulin has, of late years, 
been found to exist in the tubers of several plants, as in those of the Jeru- 
salem artichoke, the common pellitory of the wall, and the angelica. The 
root, when dried, becomes in the course of time stronger and sweeter, and 
has much of the scent and flavour of orris-root. At first taste it is glutinous. 
but somewhat strong and disagreeable, but it leaves an aromatic and bitter 
pungent flavour on the tongue. There is no doubt that it is a good pectoral 
medicine, and it is certainly a useful remedy for the diseases of sheep. The 
Romans used the roots as an edible vegetable ; and that the monks prized 
them highly, is evident from their old line, 


‘* Enula campana will restore health to the heart ;” 


Enula campana being its name among the medical writers of those days. It 
is little used in England, except that it is sometimes employed by druggists 


182 COMPOSITA4 


to adulterate ipecacuanha ; but it is made into a cordial sweetmeat, which is 
eaten by people of the East, and considered to have sanatory properties. 
Elecampane lozenges were, a few years since, sold by druggists in England ; 
and, on the Continent, various preparations of its juices form several 
favourite carminatives. The leaves, too, bruised and steeped in wine, and 
mingled with whortleberries, produce a rich blue dye. The plant grows wild 
in several countries of Europe, and is cultivated in others for flavouring 
confectionery. The French call it Inule d’ Aulnée ; the Germans, Alaut ; the 
Dutch, Gewoon alaut; the Italians, Hnula; and the Russians, Dewyjatschik. 
Its name of /eleniwm refers to the celebrated Helen, who is said to have had 
her hands full of these flowers when Paris carried her off. It was once very 
common in Sweden, but is now less frequent. Dr. A. Griesbach, of Gottingen, 
remarks: ‘“ Many plants have been extirpated by use: this is now gradually 
taking place with Gentidna lutea, in the Alps, and Inula helentum, in the north 
of Sweden. The contact of man with nature exerts no less a modifying 
influence on the vegetable kingdom than upon the animal creation. The 
original vegetation of a country must in general, therefore, be regarded as 
more rich in species; and in this manner, in Sweden and Germany, even 
under our own eyes, the localities of rare plants are disappearing one after 
the other.” 

2, Ploughman’s Spikenard (J/. conyza).—Leaves egg-shaped, some- 
what lanceolate, serrated, downy, the upper ones entire, lower ones narrowed 
into a footstalk; stem herbaceous, corymbose; scales of the involucre all 
narrow, and turning backwards, leafy; ray scarcely longer than the disk ; 
fruit round, slightly hairy; biennial. This plant, though rarely if ever 
truly wild in Scotland, is very common on waste places south of York and 
Westmoreland, from the chalky or clayey hedge-bank to the heights of the 
sea-cliff. It is a large and not a handsome plant, its heads of flowers having 
a few small florets, those of the ray being something between tubular and 
strap-shaped, and all dull yellow. The foliage, too, is of a sombre green, 
and the leaf-like scales of the involucre are frequently of a reddish-brown 
hue. The stem is about two or three feet high, and the panicles of flowers 
have leaves growing among them. They appear from July to October. The 
plant has a slightly aromatic odour—‘“ the Ploughman’s Spikenard’s spicy 
smell”—but this is not very perceptible till it is gathered. It possesses, 
however, a valuable oil, which is used as a sudorific, and which is said to 
destroy insects; hence the plant is sometimes called Flybane, and by the 
French, Herbe aua puces. It was once much valued in the cure of disease, 
both here and in France. The French call it also Conise ; the Germans term 
it Diirrwurz; the Dutch, Yonderkruid ; and the Spaniards and _ Italians, 
Conizza. Gerarde says that the “learned herbarists” of Montpellier called 
it Baccharis, believing it to be the plant alluded to by Virgil by that name. 
An American purple-flowered species emits a strong odour of camphor ; and 
other plants of the genus yield fragrant gums, which might be useful both 
in medicine and the arts, and several of which have been found to be of great 
medical use. 

3. Golden Samphire (J. crithmotdes).—Leaves linear, fleshy, usually 
three-toothed at the extremity ; scales of the involucre closely pressed, narrow, 


l ELECAMPANE 4. COMMON FLEA BANE 


Inula helen Pulicaria dvsenterica 
2. PLOUGHMANS. SPIKENARD 5. SMALL FLEA BANE 

lL. conyza P. vulgaris 
3. GOLDEN SAMPHTRE 6 COMMON DATSY 

| crithimoides Belhs perenmis . 


Pl. 131. 


an 


aa yaa 
ie 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 183 


and pointed ; ray nearly twice the length of the disk ; fruit hairy ; perennial. 
This is a rare species, found on cliffs and salt marshes in the south of England. 
It is easily distinguished from any other native plant by its fleshy leaves 
and yellow flowers, which expand in July and August. The stem is about 
a foot high, a little branched at the summit, with a single flower on each 
branch. In cases where this plant occurs, it is often used as a pickle; and 
the young shoots are sometimes even sent to the London markets, and sold 
as the veritable Samphire, to which, however, it is very inferior, though in 
its young state bearing some resemblance to it. 

4, Willow-leaved Inula (J. salicina).—Leaves rigid, the upper slender- 
oblong, eared and stalkless ; the lower ones lance-shaped, toothed and fringed ; 
smooth above, somewhat hairy beneath. Heads solitary, an inch and a half 
across ; involucral bracts slender, fringed, the outer row leafy ; flowers yellow, 
with slender rays. Fruit round, smooth, with dirty-white pappus. This 
perennial species, which occurs throughout Continental Europe, is only known 
in the British Islands from Lough Dearg, Galway. It has a leafy stem from 
a foot to a foot and a half high, and it flowers in July and August. 


42. FLEA-BANE (Pulicaria). 


1. Common Flea-bane (P. dysentérica).—Leaves oblong, heart-shaped 
or arrow-shaped, and clasping at the base, and, as well as the stem, downy ; 
scales of the involucre bristly ; ray twice as long as the disk ; fruit angular ; 
outer pappus waved and cup-like ; perennial. Few of the streams of England 
which are gay during summer with bright flowers, are destitute of the golden 
marigold-like blossoms of this plant. On the moist margins of brooks 
and rivers, on wet bogs, and even along roadside wastes, it is plentiful from 
July to September, growing often in large masses: but in Scotland it is 
a rare flower, nor is it general in Ireland. The stem is one or two feet high, 
and is conspicuous among the emerald grasses by the contrast of its wrinkled 
foliage, which is of a dull whitish uniform green colour, and which, when 
bruised, is said to have the odour of smoke, though to us it seems to have 
that of soap. Its juice is saline, bitter, and astringent. As its specific name 
indicates, it was formerly used in the cure of dysentery. It was celebrated 
by Linneus as having proved a valuable medicine in the Russian army, and 
is used occasionally in this country as a tonic. Haller, however, speaks con- 
temptuously of the medical properties of the plant, because, he says, it abounds. 
in earthy matter. Our old writers, who called it Middle Flea-bane, believed 
that if burnt in any place frequented by insects, these intruders would certainly 
be expelled ; and Forskhal says that the Arabs called it Rara eub, or Job’s 
Tears, from the belief that Job used this plant to cure himself of his painful 
maladies, during the season of his affliction. Few, if any, animals will eat 
the herb. Mr. Baxter mentions that Saussure kept a plant of this species for 
six months in the vacuum of an air-pump, without any apparent effect. It 
was then placed in the light, but in such a manner as not to receive the sun’s 
direct rays, as it withered if even a small degree of sunshine reached it. It 
also grew equally well in an atmosphere of nitrogen gas and in an atmosphere 
of common air, though the former entirely destroys life in most plants. 

2. Small Flea-bane (P. vulgdris).—Leaves lanceolate, wavy, hairy, 


184 COMPOSITA 


narrow at the base, and half clasping the stem; stem hairy, much branched ; 
ray scarcely longer than the disk; fruit angular; annual. This plant is 
found occasionally in the southern half of England, but not in Scotland or 
Ireland. Its stem is leafy, from six to twelve inches high, and the small heads 
of yellow florets expand in July and August. It grows on moist sandy heaths, 
or on places where water has once stood. 


43. Daisy (Béllis). 


Common Daisy (B. perénnis).—Stalk single-flowered ; leaves inversely 
egg-shaped, narrowing at the base, the margin having rounded notches ; 
perennial. Who does not love the Daisy, the little red-tipped Daisy, so like 
Hope and Faith in its constant up-looking ; so cheerful in aspect, that, as the 
poet has said, “it smiles even in times unkind”? To our latest days the 
Daisy will have a charm, while it can remind us that it was the first flower 
which we gathered in unlimited abundance; the flower which in childhood 
we linked into wreaths, when we “prinked our hair with daisies ”»—the flower 
on whose clustering numbers we were wont to tread, and shout, ‘Spring is 
come, for we can set our foot on nine daisies.” God has not scattered the 
daisies over green meadow or sunny hill, by our wayside or on the graves of 
our loved ones, that we should pass them unheeded, or crush them beneath 
our footstep without a thought of their grace. We have but to look into that 
star of gold and silver, to see what His hands have wrought. That star is full 
of flowers, each perfect in itself, each so wondrously constructed, that he who 
has never looked at them through a lens has not yet learned half their 
wondrous beauty, though even by a glance he may have learned to say with 


Chaucer— 
‘* Above all flouris in the mede, 

Then love I most these flouris white and rede, 
Soche that men callen daisies in our towne: 
To them I have so great affectioun, 

As I sayd erst, when comin is the Maie, 
That in my bed there dawith me no daie, 
That I n’ am up, and walking in the mede, 
To see this floure against the sunne sprede, 
When it upriseth early by the morrow, 
That blissful sight softeneth my sorrow, 

So glad am I, when that I have presence 
Of it, to doune it all reverence ; 

As she that is of all floures the floure, 
Fulfilled of all vertue and honoure ; 

And evir like faire and fresh of hewe, 

As wel in winter as in summer newe : 

This love I evir, and shall until I die, 
~All sweare I not, of this I woll not lie, 
There loved no wight nothen in this life, 
And whanne that it is eve, I renne blithe, 
As soone as ever the sunne ginneth west, 
To seene this floure, how it will go to rest, 
For fear of night, so hateth she darknesse, 
Her chere is plainly spred in the brightnesse 
Of the sunne, for there it will unclose.”’ 


Poets have sung its praises from oldest times, from Chaucer who called 
it the “eye of day,” and Ben Jonson who wrote of “sweet daie’s eyes,” 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 185 


down to the latest poets of our own period; for its beauty and early 
memories have ever appealed to the heart and imagination. The love which 
Chaucer entertains for the flower is shared by us yet, for the “delight in little 
things” has been given as a blessing to thousands of hearts by Him from 
whom cometh every good gift ; and though the mere worldly man may smile 
at the simple lover of flowers, yet those who have loved them best well know 
that this very love has come in moments of sorrow to soothe—has served as a 
recreation to minds which were wearied with earnest toil—has helped to waken 
thoughts of God as the Friend of the friendless—has whispered truths of 
heavenly consolation—has raised the heart to prayer. He says elsewhere— 


‘* That well by reason men callé it maie 
The daisie, or els the eie of the daie.” 


We might quote Spenser, who, in the “ Faerie Queene,” speaks of 
‘* The little dazy that at evening closes ;” 


or Shakspere, who tells of ‘daisies pied”; or the well-known and _ beautiful 
poems on the Daisy, by Wordsworth ; or Burns, who wrote on the “wee, 
modest, crimson-tipped flower,” crushed by the plough ; or Montgomery, who 


has some sweet verses on the 
‘* Little flower, 
With silver crest and golden eye, 
That welcomes every changing hour 
And weathers every sky.” 


But, appropriate as they are, they are too numerous for our pages. <A few 
lines from Leyden, however, must not be omitted : 
** Oft have I watch’d thy closing buds at eve, 

Which for the parting sunbeams seem’d to grieve, 

And when gay morning gilt the dew-bright plain, 

Saw them unclasp their folded leaves again ; 

Nor he who sung the ‘ daisy is so sweet,’ 

More dearly loved thy pearly form to greet, 

When on his scarf the knight the daisy bound, 

And dames at tourneys shone with daisies crown’d.” 


This opening of the flower to the sun gained for it a name, which has in 
our country outlived some of those by which it was also known in earlier 
times. Parkinson, referring to these flowers, says: ‘They are usually called 
in Latin Bellides, and in English Daisies. Some call them Herba Margarita, 
and Primula veris, as it is likely after the Italian names of Marguerite, and 
Fior di prima vera gentile. 'The French call them Pasquettes and Marquerites, 
and the fruitfull sorte, or those that beare small flowers, Margueritons. Our 
English women call them Jackanapes-on-horseback, as they doe marigolds 
and childing daisis ; but the physitians and apothecaries doe in generall calle 
them, especially the single and fielde kindes, Consolida minor.” This last 
name was doubtless given because the Daisy was supposed to heal or con- 
solidate wounds. Some of its old uses also acquired for it the appellation of 
Bruisewort ; and an old and expressive name of the flower is yet retained in 
Yorkshire, where it is called Bairnwort. The name of Herb Margaret, once 
so general in this kingdom, though scarcely remembered now, was from the 
word margarita, a pearl. Chaucer calls the flower, also, the “douce Marguerite.” 

I.— 24 


186 COMPOSIT A 


This word was much more in use formerly than now in this country, as we 
associate it simply with a woman’s name; but pearls and daisies were both 
once very generally called margarets. Thus, in Wiclif’s version of the Bible, 
we have in Matt. viii., “‘ Nyle ye gyve hooly things to houndis, neither caste 
ye your margarites before swyn.” 

This flower was by the Monks dedicated to Saint Margaret—a very 
popular saint in the olden times, her name and legend having been introduced 
all over Europe by the first Crusaders. She was the type of female innocence 
and meekness, and is described in the old metrical legends as 


‘*Maid Marguerite that was so meeke and milde.”’ 


Mrs. Jameson tells us that in some pictures she wears a wreath of roses round 
her head. ‘I have seen one picture,” she adds, ‘only one, in which she 
wears a garland of daisies, and carries daisies in her hand and lap.” 

The Daisy very early became connected with several eminent women of 
the name of Margaret. Margaret of Anjou, during the days of her pros- 
perity, not only wore the Daisy as a device, but saw it embroidered on the 
silk and velvet robes of the courtiers who surrounded her, and worn by ladies 
in their hair in her honour ; but when sorrow came to the queen, the Daisy 
flower was rejected as unfit for a courtly ornament. Though Margaret had 
little of the meekness of which the Daisy is the type, yet her woman’s heart 
was crushed when she saw this neglect, and knew herself to be, too, a blighted 
flower. Michael Drayton represents the unfortunate queen as saying to the 
Duke of Suffolk— 


‘“My Daisy flower which erst perfumed the air, 
Which for my favour princes once did wear, 
Now in the dust lies trodden in the ground, 
And with York’s garlands every one is crown’d.” 


In later days these devices, or devizes as they were called, came to be matters 
of profound study, especially among the learned men of Italy, and the Daisy 
figured, with the rose, thistle, and other favourite flowers, very largely in the 
designs. Paul Jovus, who died in 1552, left a learned treatise on the subject, 
which about thirty years after his decease was translated into English, to aid 
persons who made an art of arranging flowers and other objects into devices. 
The title of this book was, “The Worthy Tract of Paul Jovus, conteyning a 
Discourse of rare Inventions, both Military and Amorous, called Imprese : 
whereunto is added a Preface conteyning the Art of composing them, with 
many other notable Devizes : by Samuel Daniell, late Studente at Oxenforde. 
1585.” A large number of writers followed on this subject. Even the 
learned Camden did not disdain to treat of this matter, and in his ‘‘ Remains 
concerning Britain” may be found a chapter on Impreses. One of the 
writers of the sixteenth century, referring to the art of making devices, says, 
“Tt is the most compendious, most noble, most pleasing, and most efficacious 
way of expressing one’s self that human art could invent.” Henry VII. bore 
for a device the white and red rose conjoined, or he sometimes wore a haw- 
thorn bush with the crown as it was found on Bosworth field, the Lady Mar- 
garet, his mother, wearing the three white daisies growing on a turf. Margaret, 
the sister of Francis I., wore the Daisy also for her device, and was called by 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 187 


her brother his Marguerite of Marguerites, his pearl of pearls. James I. 
wore the thistle and the rose surmounted with a crown ; and Camden says of 
Queen Elizabeth, that she bore so many as would fill a volume. Louis IX. 
of France took for a device on his ring a Daisy and a lily, in allusion to the 
name of his queen and _ to the arms of France, to which he added a sapphire, 
on which a crucifix was engraved, surrounded with this motto, Hors cet annuel, 
pourrions-nous trouver Vamour ? because, as this monarch said, it was the emblem 
of all that was dearest to his heart, Religion, France, and his wife. 

The French still commonly call the Daisy Marguerite, though La paquerette 
is also a familiar name for the flower. In their fields it grows as freely as in 
ours; but no skill can make the Daisy thrive in lands between the tropics. 
In Germany, where it spangles the green meads in abundance, it is called 
Giinseblume, in Holland Madelieven ; the Italians term it Margheritina, the 
Spaniards Maya ; and the Russians call our lowly flower by the long name of 
Barchatnaja Zwietoschka. It is not common in Greece, hence we have no 
Greek name for it, but it is well known in Italy ; and the Latins named 
it Bellis, some suppose from the adjective bellus, pretty, or, according to 
others, Bellis d bello, because fitted to heal the wounds made in war. Pliny 
tells us that it was in his day commonly applied, with one of the wormwoods, 
in the form of a cataplasm. Professor Burnett considers that the plant has 
astringent properties, and hence may not have been altogether useless as a 
vulnerary. An old English herbalist says, “The greater wild Daisie is a wound- 
herb of great respect, often used in those drinkes and salves that are for 
wounds, inward or outward.” This remark, however, relates to the large 
Ox-eye Daisy, but he praises, also, the juice or distilled water of the common 
Daisy, and says it is fitting to be kept for wounds in oils, ointments, and 
plaisters, as also in syrup. He tells us that it cures ‘hurts and bruises that 
come of falls or blows,” and adds that the juice dropped into weak eyes doth 
much help them; but we should be sorry to recommend the use of so acrid 
an herb to an organ so delicate. An author, writing in 1696, tells us that 
they who wish to have pleasant dreams of the loved and absent, should ‘ put 
dazy roots under their pillow ;” and the root, worn about the person, seems 
also to have been deemed a remedy for some maladies, so that one is reminded 
of the words of Chaucer— 


‘*To other woundes, and to broken armes, 
Some hadden salves, and some hadden charmes.” 


It is said that persons who wish to prevent the growth of their young lap- 
dogs give them the Daisy roots boiled in milk. 

The Daisy is most pretty when its ray is tipped with crimson. This hue 
is found almost entirely on the plants exposed to the full glare of the sun- 
shine, and seems to disappear altogether when they grow beneath the shade 
of trees, of the wood or hedgerow. Notwithstanding our partiality for the 
flower, it must be admitted that it isa troublesome plant to the owner of the 
green meadow, spreading rapidly by its roots, and at the same time 
multiplying quickly by seed, while the leaves, pressing closely over the turf, 
check all other vegetation. The slightly acrid flavour of the Daisy renders 


it unpleasing to animals feeding on the pasture. 
24 9 
ad a 


188 COMPOSIT At 


The Double Daisy of the garden is thought to be but a cultivated variety 
of our meadow flower, and most of the varieties under culture spring 
originally from this source, though some, like the éllis sylvdticus and B. dnnua, 
are introduced from the fields of Southern Europe. The transplantation of 
our Daisy to a richer soil has changed the florets of the disk into broader 
petals, and thus given usin the Double Daisy a head of red, white or varied 
florets, without the yellow centre. In the cottage garden, the deep red or 
white, or variegated Daisies, still make a very pretty though old-fashioned 
border to the bed ; and varieties differing still further from the original 
stock are to be seen yet in the Hen-and-Chicken, or Childing Daisy, by which 
names the proliferous flower is commonly known in rural districts. 


44, Ox-BEYE (Chrysdnthemum). 


1. Great White Ox-eye (UU. lewdnthemum).—Leaves oblong, blunt, 
cut, and pinnatifid at the base, those of the root inversely egg-shaped and 
stalked ; stem erect, aiid furrowed ; scales of the involucre with a narrow 
membranous margin; annual. Scarcely less ornamental to the meadow 
land than even the Pearly Daisy are the tall clumps of Ox-eye, or Moon 
Daisy, as the flower is sometimes called, standing up on their stems one or 
two feet high. We have seen masses of this plant cultivated in gardens, and 
attaining there a greater height and size, forming a most beautiful ornament 
to the flower-bed with the pure white rays round the golden centre. The 
plant was formerly called Maudlin Daisy ; it is abundant in meadows and 
on waste places, and is a favourite flower with children, who are usually 
cautioned by careful mothers not to touch the eyes after handling it. The 
juice is bitter and acrid, and has an old repute of being obnoxious to insects. 
Professor Lindley remarks: ‘We are assured by Professor Cautraine that 
it is a certain remedy against fleas.” The Bosnians place the plant in the 
bed of their domestic animals, and these insects are driven away in a short 
time. The Ox-eye blossoms in June and July. Miss Strickland refers to it 
in these lines :— 

“¢ Here gay Chrysanthemums repose 

And when stern tempests lour, 

Their silken fringes gently close 
Against the shower : 

And whirls the blow-ball’s new-fledged pride 
In mazy rings on high, 

Whose downy pinions once untied 
Must onward fly.” 

We are accustomed to apply the name Chrysanthemum almost exclusively 
to one of the garden species of this genus, the beautiful Chinese Chrysanthe- 
mums, which are the glory of the autumnal flower-bed, and which in their 
turpentine-scented flowers yield us a bouquet long after other blossoms have 
disappeared. The species C. sinense affords innumerable varieties, and forms 
the great floral delight of the Chinese and Japanese, being largely cultivated 
in pots by the mandarins. Miller reared this plant in the Chelsea Botanic 
Garden in 1764; but it seems to have been lost, and it was reintroduced 
from France in 1795. It was for a long time a very expensive plant, but is 
now to be seen peeping through many a paling of the cottage garden, and is 
accessible to every cultivator of flowers. 


1 GREAT WHITE OX-BYE 7 SCENTLESS MAYWEED 
Chrysanthemum Jeucanthenmam M_anodora 
Z. CORN MARIGOLD 5 WILD CHAMOMILE 
C. segetura M. chamomilla 
COMMON FEVERFEW f COMMON C 
Matricaria parthenrum \athemis nobilis 


Pl. 182. 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 189 


2. Corn Marigold (C. ségetum).—Leaves smooth, toothed, and lobed, 
upper ones clasping; scales of the involucre egg-shaped and blunt, with a 
broad membranous margin; stem branched; flowers solitary, terminal ; 
perennial. This plant, though somewhat local, is so abundant in some 
districts, that every cornfield is spangled with its bright yellow blooms. In 
June and July, its large flowers often contrast beautifully with the blue and 
scarlet blossoms growing among the corn. In France, it is more frequent 
than in our fields. It has remarkably smooth and glaucous foliage, and the 
flower stands on an angular stalk about a foot high, which is alternately 
branched. Both disk and ray of the blossom are of uniform yellow, and it 
is as large as a garden Marigold. 

Beautiful as the flower is, yet growing in land on which ears of corn 
should be multiplying, it is most unwelcome to the farmer, as are most 
of its floral companions there :— 

‘The lowly bind with its delicate tinge, 
The azure succory’s silken fringe, 
The modest scabious of deeper blue, 
And silvery galium of virgin hue, 
The gay fluellin and ox-eye bold, 
And their gaudy neighbour the Marigold.” 


The French call this flower Marguerite jaune, Souci des champs, Souci des 
blés; the Italians term it Crisantemo, and the French Chrysantéme, names 
which, like our old ones of Golding and Goul, and the German Goldblume. 
refer to its rich hue, and some of which are made from the Greek words for 
Gold-flower. The old Gool-ridings of Scotland were established for the 
purpose of exterminating this weed from the corn-fields, and a penalty of a 
wether sheep was paid by the farmer whose field was found so neglected as 
to furnish a large crop of the Gools. The practice is supposed to have 
originated with the Vice-Chancellor of Henry VI., who exercised great severity 
towards the farmers on his own lands, and established the Gool-ridings, in 
order to punish them for their omissions in not clearing the corn of the “ Carr- 
gulds.” In Denmark, a law compels the extirpation of the Corn Marigold. 


45. WiLD CHAMOMILE, FEVER-FEW (Matricdria). 


1. Common Fever-few (M. parthénium).—Leaves stalked, flat, twice 
pinnate, the segments egg-shaped and cut; flower-stalks branched; stem 
erect ; involucre hemispherical and downy ; receptacle convex ; pappus short, 
toothed ; perennial. This is a common plant in waste places and hedges. 
Its stem is one or two feet high, and the disk-flowers are yellow, with short 
white rays around. Persons who are afraid of bees should carry a piece of 
the plant in the hand; for these insects carefully avoid contact with it, dis- 
liking, it is said, its aromatic odour. Its English name is a corruption of 
Febrifuga, from its old uses in fevers. It is now commonly called Feather- 
few, and was so called by some of the herbalists, probably on account of its 
delicately cut leaves, which are conspicuous even in winter by their green 
hue. The odour is pleasant, something resembling that of the chamomile, 
but weaker. The plant was formerly regarded as a specific for ague: it was 
made into a syrup for winter use, and, mingled with honey, was supposed to 


190 COMPOSIT Ai 


cure cold and cough; it was also used as a cosmetic. It is still employed 
externally as a lotion in cutaneous disorders. Some authors include it in the 
genus Chrysanthemum. 

2. Scentless Mayweed (MV. inodéra).—Leaves sessile, twice pinnatifid, 
the segments thread-like ; stem branched, spreading; receptacle convex ; 
pappus entire, or 4-lobed; annual. A perennial variety of this plant, grow- 
ing on the sea-shores, having fieshy leaves and a hemispherical receptacle, 
is sometimes described as M. maritima. Everybody knows the common May- 
weed, with its very convex yellow disk and long white ray, though it puzzles 
the young botanist by belying its name, and having an odour which, though 
not aromatic, is powerful and unpleasant. It is in flower from June to the 
end of autumn ; its stem is about a foot high, and the blossoms large, and on 
long naked flower-stalks. It grows on banks, field-borders, sea-beaches, and 
other waste places. 

The variety called marttima, which is often found on parts of the shore 
exposed to the sea spray, has been found, on analysis by Mr. Brand, to contain 
iodine ; and the specimens having been well washed previously to analysis, the 
iodine could not have been derived from saline incrustation. Some other 
plants, as a moss called the seaside grimmia, and the pretty flower called 
thrift (Stdiice arméria), were found also to contain it. [Iodine was found to 
exist in all the tissues of these plants gathered from the seaside, the specimens 
being perfectly healthy. Subsequent investigations have detected iodine in 
a number of substances hitherto unsuspected. M. Chatin believed it to exist 
in marine and fresh-water plants in all quarters of the globe, while coal is 
rich in the iodine derived from vegetables of former ages. ‘The anti-scorbutic 
effects of water-cress, and some other aquatic plants, have been attributed to 
the presence of iodine in their tissues ; and it has been suggested that plants 
growing in running water, or in large bodies of water which may be strongly 
agitated by the winds, contain more iodine than those of stagnant water ; and 
that the proportion is very small in species which are submerged either 
partially, or only at intervals. Iodine is well known to exist largely in many 
seaweeds. 

3. Wild Chamomile (WV. chamomilla).—Leaves smooth, twice pinnatifid, 
with thread-like segments ; involucre with blunt scales, shightly membranous 
at the margin; receptacle oblong, narrow, and much raised; annual. The 
flowers of this plant have a conical disk, and short, toothed, white rays. 
They expand from June to August, and have a bitter flavour and aromatic 
odour very much like that of the true Chamomile-flower, for which they are 
often substituted. ‘Their properties, however, are somewhat less powerful 
than in that species. This plant grows on waste grounds, and in corn-fields. 


46, CHAMOMILE (Anthemis). 


1. Common Chamomile (4. nobilis).—Leaves twice pinnate ; segments 
very slender and awl-shaped, somewhat downy ; receptacle conical, the scales 
scarcely longer than its disk; perennial. Of all the plants which won 
in the olden times a reputation for their sanatory properties, none have 
retained more credit in modern days than the Chamomile. In villages, it is 
regarded as supplying the very best of tonics, and chamomile-tea is taken in 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 191 


the early morning with unhesitating faith. Even in our days, we may some- 
times see the delicate invalid sitting by the chamomile-bed to inhale an aroma 
which he hopes will bring strength to the weakened lungs. The flowers are 
strongly fragrant, and bitter, containing camphor and tannin ; and both odour 
and flavour may be extracted either by water or alcohol. They also afford 
an essential oil of a fine blue colour, which, on exposure to air, becomes 
yellow. Their properties are tonic, carminative, and shghtly anodyne ; and 
according to Dr. Schall, the infusion is not only an effectual preventive of 
nightmare, but the only certain remedy for that complaint. The old writers 
said that the syrup made of the juice of Chamomile flowers, mingled with white 
wine, was a cure for jaundice ; and that a decoction of the flowers is “good 
to wash the head, and comfort both it and the brain.” The Chamomile, though 
somewhat local, is frequent on many pastures and dry commons, as on those 
about Tunbridge Wells, making the turf fragrant as the foot presses it. The 
stem is about a foot long, branched and prostrate ; each branch is terminated 
by a single flower with a yellow disk (which eventually becomes conical), 
surrounded by white rays. All parts of the flower are intensely bitter, 
especially the yellow disk, and in this and the involucre the chief virtue of 
the plant resides. The wild plant is on this account preferable to the culti- 
vated one, for culture leaves the blossom with very little disk, the central 
florets becoming changed into rays. The difficulty of collecting the wild 
flower in sufficient abundance renders it, however, necessary that the Chamo- 
mile should be planted ; and immense quantities of the plant are reared for 
the London market in the neighbourhood of Mitcham and Tooting, where, 
during July, August, and September, hundreds of people are engaged in 
gathering the blossoms. 

Our fathers early discovered that, as Shakspere said, “The Chamomile, 
the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows ;’ and country people yet walk 
daily over the little beds of this plant in their gardens in order to help it to 
perfection. Our ancestors evidently liked its aromatic scent; for Lawson 
mentions seats formed of banks of Chamomile and other flowers, on which 
the men of old times loved to repose in sunshine or shadow. These banks 
were common in gardens some centuries since, as may be seen in old pictures. 
One of these, engraved from a MS. of the “‘ Romaunt of the Rose,” was repro- 
duced by Mr. T. Hudson Turner, in the Archeological Journal, and represents 
a bank of earth thrown up against the wall of the inclosure, the front faced 
with brick or stone, the mould reduced to an even surface, and planted to 
suit the taste of the owner. Chaucer, too, says— 


** And on a little herbere that I have, 
That benched was on turves fresh igrave, 
I bade men shoulde mee my couche make.” 


Such a bank, planted with Chamomile among the turf, would present a 
soit cushion-like surface, and to those who liked the odour would yield, on 
pressure, a pleasant perfume. Parkinson alludes to this old use of the plant ; 
he says, “It is a common hearbe, well knowne, and is planted of the rootes 
in alleyes and walkes, and on bankes to sit on, for that the more it is trodden 
on and pressed downe in dry weather, the closer it- groweth, and the better 


192 COMPOSIT 44 


it will thrive: the use thereof is very much both to warm and to comfort 
and to ease paines, being applied outwardly after many fashions.” He adds, 
as do all the writers of that day, that the decoction of the flowers cures the 
ague. The scent of the blossom is somewhat like that of the quince, or, as 
some say, of the apple; hence its name, signifying in Greek Ground Apple. 
The plant, besides growing wild among the turf of most European countries, 
is almost universally cultivated for sale. The French call it Camomille, the 
Dutch and Germans Kamille, the Italians Camomilla, and the Spaniards 
Manzanilla. This plant is not a native of America; but Sir Charles Lyell, 
in his work on the United States, remarks that he saw it growing all about 
the neighbourhood of New Harmony, and adds, “‘ Many European plants are 
making their way here, and it is a most curious fact, which I afterwards 
learned from Dr. Dale Owen, that when such foreigners are first naturalized, 
they overrun the country with amazing rapidity, and are quite a nuisance ; 
but they soon grow scarce, and after eight or ten years are scarcely to be 
met with at all.” Probably this may prove to be eventually the case with 
some of the weeds carried of late years into the Australian fields, and proving 
so troublesome to the cultivator. Colonel Mundy says, “ Many European 
plants newly introduced for the gardens in Australia seem to be regularly 
puzzled by the climate, and to be most singularly affected by it. They seem 
to bud prematurely, and then remain stationary, as though waiting for a 
safe opportunity of coming out. When once expanded they are most 
luxuriant, but one or two hours of southerly wind will so entirely blast the 
blossoms and young shoots, that a newly-arrived English gardener would 
suppose that his show of bloom was destroyed for the year. A change of 
wind and a shower brings a regeneration more lovely than before ; and such 
may occur half a dozen times ere the midsummer sun finally scorches the 
poor exotics to tinder. Notwithstanding this, however, several of our wild 
weeds, as the horehound, the sow-thistle, the thistle, and the poppy, have 
established themselves in that country in great luxuriance and over wide 
extents, and it remains for time to show whether in the course of years they 
will become more or less abundant on the soil.” 

2. Ox-eye Chamomile (4d. tinctéria).—Stem much branched ; leaves 
twice pinnatifid, downy beneath, serrated; receptacle hemispherical ; fruit 
four-sided ; annual. ‘This species being often planted in gardens is fre- 
quently, if not always, an outcast from cultivated ground. It has been 
found, though rarely, in fields and stony places, on the banks of the Tees 
near Durham, and one or two other spots whence it has now disappeared. 
The large flowers grow singly on long stalks, and both ray and disk are of a 
golden yellow. The stem is one or two feet high and cottony, and the leaves 
are rough or hairy above, and white with down beneath. The flowers 
expand in July and August, and are in France gathered from the fields to 
be used by dyers, as they yield a beautiful yellow tint. 

3. Corn Chamomile (4. arvénsis).—Stem upright, branched, and 
downy; leaves twice pinnatifid, segments slender, lanceolate ; receptacle 
conical, its scales lanceolate; fruit crowned with an entire ring; bien- 
nial. This plant is found, though rarely, on the borders of cultivated 
fields both in England and Scotland. Its heads of flowers, which grow singly 


hy 


SEA CHAMOMLLE 
\nthemis anfglica 


CORN C 


STINKING 


Cc 


A. Uinctoria. 


A. arvensis 


A.cotula 


9 


~I 


BROAD-LEAVED BOR-WEED 
Xanthium 


Pil, 133, 


SNEEZE-WORT YARROW 


Achillea ptarmica 


DOTTED-LEAVED Y 


A. decolorans 


COMMON - MILFOTI, 


A. millefolium 


WOOLLY-YELLOW ™M 


strumarium . 


A. tomentosa 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 193 


on long stalks, on a furrowed stem one or two feet high, expand from June 
to August; they are large, have a bright yellow convex disk and a white 
ray, and the florets have always styles—a circumstance which distinguishes 
this species from A. cotula. ‘The flowers are scentless, and the leaves and 
stem quite white with down. 

4, Sea Chamomile (4. dnglica).—Leaves pinnatifid, somewhat hairy, 
lobes cut and serrated, acute, bristle-pointed, rather fleshy ; receptacle flat ; 
fruit crowned with a very narrow entire border; perennial. This plant, 
which was found in 1844 on the sea-coast at Sunderland, is a maritime 
form of 4. arvensis. Its stem is prostrate and branched, and, as well as its 
involucre, downy. It bears, in July, flowers with a yellow disk and white 
rays, the scales of the receptacle being shorter than the opened corollas. 

5. Stinking Chamomile (4. cétula).—Leaves twice pinnatifid, nearly 
smooth, lobes linear, acute, mostly entire ; receptacle conical, its scales linear, 
bristled ; pappus none; rays without styles. The flowers of this species 
grow singly on long terminal stalks, having a pale yellow convex disk, and 
a white ray. The stem is from one to two feet in height, branched, angular, 
and furrowed. It isa very common plant on waste places, banks, sea-beaches, 
and heaths, and in the south of England is one of the most abundant weeds. 
It is, however, unfrequent in some of the northern counties, and Dr. Johnston 
says it is not to be found anywhere in the neighbourhood of Berwick-upon- 
Tweed. Many a one in wandering through the corn-fields in July and 
August has gathered it in expectation of finding the fragrant odour of the 
Chamomile, and has thrown it from him in disgust, for few of our wild plants 
emit a more offensive odour. It increases by seed with amazing rapidity, 
and naturalizes itself most easily where, as in some parts of America, it has 
been accidentally introduced. In our own land it will often so overrun the 
corn-field as very seriously to disappoint the expectations which the farmer 
forms of his crop. It has several country names, some of them relics of the 
olden times, and too profane for record here, but Mather and Stinking 
Mugwort are among those by which it is commonly called in country places. 
It is said to be sometimes, notwithstanding its unpleasant odour, mingled 
with the chamomile of commerce, but its properties are somewhat different 
‘rom those of that plant, for the juice is very acrid, and blisters the hands of 
reapers when gathering in the corn. It has, however, tonic properties, and 
its powerfully bitter infusion is often taken medicinally. ees certainly pass 
by it when gathering honey, and it is said to be obnoxious to them and to 
many other insects; but Linnzus observed that it was grateful to toads. 
Its flowers are much like those of the true Chamomile, but larger. Its seeds 
have many warty angles, or rough points. The Hon. Mr. Curzon, when in 
Armenia, saw a species of Chamomile (Anthemis rosea aut carnea), the powder 
of which instantly kills fleas and other insects, and which, he says, would be 
invaluable to travellers in warm climates. The people call the plant 
Piré otou, and our author relates in a most amusing manner the miseries of 
a little dog, which was subjected to the intrusion of a great number of fleas, 
until one of the grooms, commiserating his condition, put himself to the 
expense of a farthing in purchasing two good handfuls of the Piré otou, the 
effect of which was magical. In one minute every insect was destroyed, and, 

I1.— 25 


194 COMPOSIT Ai 


as this writer narrates, “Fundook swaggered into the kitchen a renovated 
dog.” There can be little doubt that the bitterness, pungency, or aromatic 
properties of plants like the Chamomiles, fleabanes, and yarrows, have been 
developed by them in self-defence, to prevent extirpation by browsing 
animals. The truth of this will be apparent to anyone who looks over a 
pasture and sees a number of such plants standing erect and untouched, 
whilst the grass has been closely cropped around them. 


47, YARRow, MILFOIL (Achilléa). 


1. Sneeze-wort Yarrow (4. pldrmica).—Leaves shining, slender, lan- 
ceolate, tapering, acute, uniformly and finely serrated, the serratures rough 
at the margin ; ray as long as the involucre, 8—12-flowered ; scales of the 
involucre with a dark brown membranous border; perennial. ‘This is a 
very pretty plant of our waste grounds and moist meadows, by no means 
rare, though not, like the Common Yarrow, a denizen of every greensward. 
It is tall and slender, the stem sometimes three feet high, though more 
commonly half that height. This is quite erect, and terminates in a rather 
large corymb of flowers, of which both disk and ray are white, and each 
flower often as large as a daisy. The plant is very common on mountainous 
regions, and blossoms in July and August. All parts have a pungent 
flavour. When put in the mouth it promotes saliva, in the same way as the 
pellitory of Spain, and, like that plant, it will often cure toothache. It has 
been much used medicinally, and in spring its young shoots add a pleasant 
flavour to the dish of salad. When dried it excites sneezing, and the 
Highlanders are said to use it as a substitute for snuff. 

A double-flowered variety of the Sneeze-wort is often cultivated in 
gardens, and called Bachelor’s Buttons ; and this with some other species, as 
A. nana and moschata, are among the plants called Genzpa in various Alpine 
districts. Several of the species grow at great elevations, and many are 
found on wide extended plains, as on the steppes bordering the Dnieper in 
Russia, where species of Yarrow, mullein, wormwood, spurge, and thistles 
are mixed with the tall dry grass, and, being commonly used for firing, are 
included in the general name of Burian fuel. These flowers render the 
steppes beautiful during spring-time, covering them for a few months as with 
an embroidered carpet, but they are soon scorched up by the burning sun of 
summer. 

2. Dotted-leaved Yarrow (4. decolérans).—Leaves thick, downy, 
closely dotted, very narrow, lanceolate, coarsely and doubly serrate, with 
spreading serratures cut into long narrow teeth at the base ; ray 5—6-flowered, 
as long as the involucre; perennial. Mr. Babington remarks of the 
leaves of this plant, that they are “not all attenuated, and very different in 
shape, consistency and sculpture from any of the preceding.” ‘The flowers, 
too, which appear in September, are peculiar in their pale buff-coloured rays. 
The stem is unbranched, erect, leafy, downy, with axillary leafy tufts. The 
plant has been reported from Matlock, in Derbyshire, but it appears to be 
only known in this country as a cultivated plant. 

3. Common Yarrow, or Milfoil (4. millefélium).— Leaves deeply 
twice pinnatifid, either woolly or nearly smooth ; lobes cut into slender acute 


COMPOUND FLOWERS 195 


segments; stems furrowed ; scales of the involucre nearly smooth; root 
perennial. Several of the old names of this plant are very significant of 
its former uses: Souldier’s Wound-wort, Knyghten Milfoil, and Nose-bleed, 
all show how much our fathers prized this herb as a vulnerary; while its 
common name of Old Man’s Pepper indicates its use as a condiment to the 
salad, though it scarcely merits this distinction, for but a slight pungency 
exists in its young leaves. It is, however, bitter, and has a good deal of 
astringency, though, as Professor Burnett remarks, “it is little esteemed, 
except by the good women of the Orkneys, who hold Milfoil tea in high 
repute for its power in dispelling melancholy.” Its odour is slightly aromatic, 
and the fresh roots have a warm and pleasantly pungent flavour ; there is no 
doubt that any part of the plant is a safe and useful application to wounds. 
It is still in common use to cure headache, and people in villages yet put 
this herb up the nostrils to stanch bleeding. We have known people take 
large quantities as a remedy in consumption ; but the herb is too powerful 
to be used safely in so extensive and indiscriminate a manner, though the 
Yarrow salve still made by country people deserves some praise. 

The Yarrow is so common a plant that it may be found on every heath, 
or meadow-land, or sunny bank; and we could rarely wander into an 
English churchyard from June to September without seeing its dense clusters 
of white flowers, more or less tinged with a pinkish or purple hue, growing 
on an angular stem one or two feet high. Its dark green beautifully-cut 
leaves add much to its beauty, and it may often be found looking fresh and 
verdant when the chilling winds of winter have swept from the mead all 
flowers save itself and the daisy ; and sometimes a stray plant of Yarrow will 
smile to the sunshine of a Christmas-day. Agnes Strickland has some lines 
to this flower :— 

‘“Green Yarrow, Nature’s simplest child, 

Thy leaves of emerald dye, 

And silvery blossoms undefiled, 

On rugged path, or barren wild, 
The traveller passes by 

With reckless glance and careless tread, 

Nor marks the kindly carpet spread 
Beneath his thankless feet ; 

So poor a meed of sympathy 


Do generous herbs of low degree 
From haughty mortals meet. 


** But thou a resting-place hast found 

Which none disputes with thee :— 

The silent churchyard’s lowly bound, 

Where sweetly on the hallow’d ground 
Thou growest wildly free ; 

Aye mantling o’er each nameless mound 

Thy graceful foliage creeps around, 
And thy pale blossoms wave, 

Wet with the dew’s descending shower, 

Beneath the yew’s funereal bower, 

And mourners in the autumn hour, 

Behold and bless the gentle flower, 
That decks the peasant’s grave.’ 


Achilles is said to have been the first who used this as a wound-herb, and 
Wa? 


196 COMPOSITAZ.—COMPOUND FLOWERS 


¢he plant, which is as abundant on many of the fields of the Continent as on 
ours, has several names which allude to the warrior whose deeds the ancient 
poets have recorded. Thus it is the Schafgarbe of the Germans, the 
Achillea of the Italians, and the Aquilea of the Spanish. The Dutch term it 
Duizendblad, and the French, besides calling it Achillée, know it also as Herbe 
au charpentier, because its healing powers are fitted to heal the wounds caused 
by any sharp instrument used by the mechanic. 

4. Woolly Yellow Milfoil, or Yarrow (4A. tomentdésa).— Leaves 
woolly, pinnatifid; lobes crowded, 2—3-cleft; segments slender, acute ; 
corymbs repeatedly compound ; scales of the involucre woolly ; perennial. 
This plant, which grows on several dry hilly pastures in Scotland, has a 
woody stem about six or eight inches high, prostrate at the base. The 
flowers expand in August, and both ray and disk are of a golden yellow, 
growing on much-branched corymbs. The leaves are downy. The small 
size of this species readily distinguishes it from the others; but there is 
little doubt that, on the few spots where it occurs, it has escaped from 
cultivation. 


48, BUR-REED (Xdnthium). 


Broad-leaved Bur-reed (X. strumérium).—Stem without spines ; 
lower leaves heart-shaped, 3-lobed at the base, coarsely toothed ; fruit downy, 
with two straight beaks, having hooked prickles; annual. This plant 
is placed by botanists in an anomalous genus, as not agreeing in character- 
istics with any other of the compound flowers. It can scarcely be said to be 
even naturalized, though occurring in several places in the south of England, 
and about Kerry, in Ireland, on waste grounds where the soil is rich and 
moist. Its stamens and pistils are in separate flowers on the same plant, and 
the prickly involucres which surround the fertile flowers enlarge and become 
part of the fruit. Its blossoms expand in August and September, and its 
greenish flowers are more curious than beautiful. Dioscorides mentions that 
an infusion of this plant dyes the hair yellow, and though yellow hair has 
only of late years been admired by us, yet that it was so in earlier days, the 
poets, from Chaucer to Spenser, abundantly testify. The latter poet thus 
praises the beauty of one of his heroines :— 

** Her long loose yellow locks, like golden wire, 
Sprinkled with perle and perling flowers between, 
Do like a golden mantle her attire.” 
At that time it was usual not only to dye the hair yellow, as in the days of 
Dioscorides, but to give it that tinge by sprinkling over it a yellow powder. 
This must account for the number of portraits of yellow-haired people which 
belong to the period of Queen Elizabeth. 

The Bur-reed is also called Lesser Burdock, because in its general habit, 
leaves, and flowers, it is much like that plant. Some of the exotic species, 
as the Spiny Bur-reed (X. spindsum) and the Hedgehog Bur-reed (X. echindtum), 
are still more like burs than this, and the spiny species is by many thought 
to be the one referred to by the ancients. The Bur-reed is called in France 
Lampourde; in Germany, Spitzklette; in Holland, Kleine Klissen. ‘The 
Italians term it Lappola minore, and the Portuguese, Bardana menor. 


CAMPANULACEAI—BELL-FLOWER TRIBE yy) 


Order XLVII. CAMPANULACEA—_BELL-FLOWER 
TRIBE. 


Calyx superior, 5-lobed, remaining till the fruit ripens; corolla regular, 
bell-shaped or wheel-shaped, rising from the mouth of the calyx, 5-lobed, and 
withering on the fruit; stamens equalling in number the lobes of the corolla, 
and alternate with them ; anthers not uniting, except in the genus Jasidne ; 
ovary inferior, of two or more many-seeded cells; style 1, covered with 
hairs ; stigma simple, or with as many lobes as the ovary has cells; fruit 
dry, crowned by the withered calyx and corolla, splitting, or opening by 
valves at the side or top; seeds numerous, fixed to a central column. The 
Bell-flowers and their allies are herbaceous or somewhat shrubby plants, with 
round or irregularly-angled stems, mostly alternate leaves, without stipules. 
They have a milky bitter juice, and the roots. of several species are edible ; 
but they are more valued for the beauty of their flowers than for any 
economical uses. 

1. BELL-FLOWER (Campdnula).—Corolla bell-shaped, with 5 broad and 
shallow lobes ; filaments broad at the base ; anthers distinct ; stigma 2—5- 
cleft ; capsule 2—5-celled, opening by pores at the side, rarely at the top. 
Name from the Latin, campana, a bell. 

2. RamPiIon (Phytedma).—Corolla wheel-shaped, with five deep lobes ; 
filaments broad at the base; anthers distinct; stigma 2—23-cleft ; capsule 
2—3-celled, bursting at the side. Name from the Greek, phyton, a plant. 

3. SHEEP’S-BIT (Jasiéne).—Corolla wheel-shaped, with 5 long narrow 
segments; anthers united at their base; stigma 2-cleft; capsule 2-celled, 
opening at the top by small teeth ; flowers in heads, within a many-leaved 
involucre. Name of uncertain origin. 


1. BELL-FLOWER (Campdénula). 
* Corolla bell-shaped ; capsule top-shaped ; pores just below the calyx segments. 


1. Spreading Bell-flower (C. pdtula).—Stem angular, rough ; leaves 
somewhat rough, with rounded notches at the margin, wavy, oblong, and 
sessile, lower ones tapering at the base; flowers few, on long stalks, in 
spreading panicles, erect, with the clefts close to the calyx segments ; 
annual. This is by no means a common plant. It is almost limited to the 
western and southern counties of England, where it occurs in pastures and 
hedges, and even there is seldom abundant. It is somewhat similar to the 
common harebell, but is distinguished from it by its rough stem and loose 
panicles of larger, more open, cup-shaped, and deeper purple flowers. The 
Rey. W. T. Bree, referring to this plant at Allesley, in Warwickshire, says : 
“In the immediate neighbourhood of this place I should seek in vain for a 
wild specimen of such plants as the viper’s bugloss, the blue succory, 
kidney-vetch, wood spurge, wild clary, common wormwood, and several 
others equally common ; while the beautiful Campdnula patula, generally, and 
with reason, considered one of our rarer natives, occurs plentifully in this 
and other parishes of the neighbourhood. I have been told that, some years 
ago, a noble lady resident in this county informed the celebrated Mr. Curtis 


198 CAMPANULACE 


that C. pdtula was common in Warwickshire. As her ladyship was at that 
time only commencing the study of Botany, Mr. Curtis seemed unwilling to 
credit the statement, and concluded that some other more common species 
had been mistaken for the one in question, assuring her at the same time 
that C. pdtula was one of our rarest English plants.” ‘This plant is in flower 
from July to September, and its stem is about two feet high. 

2. Rampion (C. rapinculus).—Stem somewhat angular, rough; leaves 
with rounded notches at the margin, those of the root oblong, inversely egg- 
shaped and stalked, upper ones slender and lanceolate ; panicle of flowers 
erect; perennial. This species, which is not common, occurs on some 
gravelly soils in several of the midland counties, as well as in Kent and 
Surrey, and a few spots as far north as Fife. It is a straight tall plant, its 
stem two or three feet in height, with clustered panicles of rather small 
flowers, not spreading, but truly bell-shaped, and of a pale blue colour, and 
the calyx consisting of five awl-shaped segments. It is doubtful if this is 
truly wild, for it was much cultivated in this country in former times, and 
was probably introduced from the south of Europe, in most of the countries 
of which, as well as in Barbary, it grows wild and in abundance. Its root is 
white and thick, something like a little turnip, but more tapering ; hence its 
name from Rapa, a radish, while the French call the plant Razponce ; the 
Germans, Rapunzel; and the Italians, Raperonzola. 'The root, which was 
formerly prized as an edible vegetable throughout Europe, was largely culti- 
vated in the kitchen-gardens of this country, and called Ramp. Michael 
Drayton describes it as “the Rampion rare,” and several old writers mention 
it as a valuable vegetable. It is still cultivated to some extent as an esculent 
in France and Italy, but in this country it is now only to be seen in the 
garden of the curious, or in wild spots where it has become naturalized. 
The roots were either boiled and eaten with sauce, or sliced and prepared 
with vinegar and pepper asa salad. An Arabian species, C. édulis, has also 
a thick sapid root, containing an abundance of starch, and is much eaten. 

3. Peach-leaved Bell-flower (C. persicifélia).—_Stem smooth, rounded, 
and few-flowered ; root-leaves inversely egg-shaped, narrowed into a leaf- 
stalk, and with rounded marginal notches; stem-leaves slender, lanceolate, 
and sessile, with very narrow serratures; calyx segments entire ; 
perennial. This is a very doubtful native, found in woods near Banff in 
Scotland, and in Yorkshire, bearing in July its large open blue flowers, which 
spread so much as scarcely to remind one of a bell. The flowers of the plant 
are in the wild state often solitary, but when cultivated in our gardens they 
sometimes crowd together at the upper part of the stem. It is by the 
gardeners called Paper Bell-flower, from the stiff though delicate texture of 
the blossoms, which are often double, and form azure or snowy rosettes. It 
is among the oldest ornaments of our parterre. Gerarde says of it in 1597, 
“Tt is planted in our gardens, but does not grow wild in England.” The 
French call it Campanule des jardins, and Campanule a feuilles de pécher. 

4. Round-leaved Bell-flower (C. rotundifélia).—Stem smooth ; root- 
leaves heart-shaped or kidney-shaped, shorter than their stalks ; stem-leaves 
slender, the lower ones lanceolate ; calyx segments awl-shaped ; perennial. 
This plant, the Harebell of the poets, is by modern botanists restored to the 


b& 


4 


a 


SPREADING BELL FLOWER 
Campanula patula 
RAMPION BELL FLOWER , 
C.rapunculns 
PEACH LEAVED BELL FLOWER 
C. persicifolia 


HARE BELL 

C. rotundifolia 
GIANT BELL FLOWER 

C. latifolia . 


Pl. 134, 


CREEPING BELL FLOWER 

C. rapuncnioides 
NETTLE LEAVED BELL FLOWER 

C, trachelhura 
CLUSTERED BELL FLOWER , 

C. slomerata 
IVY LEAVED BELL FLOWER 

C hederacea. 
CORN BELL FLOWER 

C. hybrida 5 


BELL-FLOWER TRIBE Wg) 


old orthography from which it was corrupted a generation ago, when it 
became the fashion to write it Hairbell. It grows wild on heaths, banks, 
and braes, and some who saw it nodding on the wind-swept hill thought that 
for a bell on so slender a stem Hairbell was an appropriate name. But, in 
truth, its name appears to have been originally suggested by the places it 
affects in common with the hare. It is throughout Europe a very favourite 
flower, and is the Clochetie of the French, and is called by the Germans either 
Weisen-Busch, or Grass-glass. In some English counties it is familiarly called 
Witches’ Thimble. The leaves on the stem are narrow, but the plant derives 
its specific name from those about the root, which appear in winter and early 
spring, but wither by July, when the flower is beginning to droop on its 
stem. It has been said that Linneus characterized them by these leaves, 
having first observed them in winter on the steps of the Upsal University, 
but the author of that statement has overlooked the fact that the same name 
was used for the plant by Gerarde two centuries before Linnzus. 


“On its fair fragile stalk all lightly swaying, 

Trembles the Harebell at each passing breeze, 

Or bends to earth, if haply, there delaying, 
Seeks its blue depths the velvet-coated bees, 

Who, charter’d plunderers, unwearied winging 
Their buoyant course from flower to flower, pursue 

From hour to hour their toils, till laden, bringing 
Home golden treasures with the evening dew.” 


Much difference of opinion at one time existed as to whether this is the 
blue-bell of Scotland, or whether that flower is the wild hyacinth, commonly 
in England called blue-bell. But few Scotsmen will doubt whether the grace- 
ful Campanula, so common on their heathery downs, is the flower which they 
would link with home and country ; though Dodoneus says, that in his time 
the wild hyacinth was commonly known by the name of harebell. Modern 
poets of Scotland all claim the Campanula both as their blue-bell and harebell. 
We have Robert Nicholls saying— 


‘*T winna bide in your castle halls, 
Nor yet in your lofty towers, — 
My heart is sick 0’ your gloomy hame, 
Aw’ sick 0’ your darksome bowers ; 
An’ O, I wish I were far awa’ 
Fra their grandeur and their gloom, 
Where the free-born lintie sings its sang 
On the muir o’ gorse an’ broom. 


**Sae weel as I like the healthfu’ gale 

That bla’s fu’ kindly there, 

An’ the heather brown, an’ the wild Blue-beli, 
That wave on the muirland bare ; 

An’ the singing birds, an’ the humming-bees, 
An’ the little lochs that toom 

Their gushin’ burns to the distant sea, 
O’er the muir o’ gorse an’ broom.” 


The graceful azure bell is very abundant on sunny slopes amid short grass 
until the month of September. 


200 CAMPANULACEA 


Sir Walter Scott evidently alludes to this flower when, in the ‘‘ Lady of 
the Lake,” he represents Ellen as gathering it : 

‘* She stoop’d, and looking round, 
Pluck’d a blue Harebell from the ground 
For me, whose memory scarce conveys 
An image of more splendid days. 
This little flower, that loves the lea, 
May well my simple emblem be ; 
It drinks Heaven’s dew as blithe as rose 
That in the king’s own garden grows.” 

This is one of the flowers so common, that, like the daisy, it would, when 
seen in any foreign land, remind us of early days and early scenes. Mrs. 
Moodie tells us, that in Canada she was deeply affected by the sight of 
some of these flowers. ‘ Pressing our way through the bushes,” she says, 
“we came to a small opening in the underwood, so thickly grown over with 
roses in full blossom, that the air was impregnated with a delightful odour. 
In the centre of this bed of sweets rose an humble mound that protected the 
bones of the red man from the ravenous jaws of the wolf and wild cat. It 
was completely covered with stones, and from among the crevices had sprung 
a tuft of blue Harebells, waving as wild and free as if they grew among the 
bonny red heather on the glorious hills of the North, or shook their tiny 
bells to the breeze on the broom-encircled commons of England.” 

Two or three species of Bell-flowers seem to have shared in the general 
name of Harvest-bells, because they bloomed in autumn. Clare apparently 
calls this by that name :— 

‘* Among the heath-furze still delights to dwell, 
Quaking, as if with cold, the Harvest-bell.” 

The roots of this Campanula may be eaten, and the juice of the flower 
makes a very good ink, which, when alum is mingled with it, becomes of a 
rich green colour. Large clusters of the Harebell are sometimes planted in 
gardens with very good effect ; and a white variety occurring rarely on our 
downs, and more frequently on those of France, is also often planted in 
gardens. The French call this modest white flower La religieuse des champs. 

The peculiar structure of this prettily-veined Blue-bell is described in so 
lucid and interesting a manner by Professor Lindley, in his “ Ladies’ Botany,” 
that we shall quote it for our readers. One is struck in reading a work like 
this, at once so scientific and simple in its details, with the contrast afforded 
between the works of modern men of science and some that were published 
in the olden time. Sir Hugh Plat wrote his “Garden of Eden” in 1675 ; 
and in his Epistle to all “Gentlemen, Ladies, and all others delighting in 
God’s vegetable creatures,” takes great praise to himself for his explicitness. 
Referring to that “gallant and glorious Italian,” lo Baptista Porta, he says, 
“T make no question that if he had knowne this part of vegetable philosophy, 
he would have penned the same as a sphinx, and roled it up in the most 
cloudy and darksome speech that he could have possibly devised.” Very 
different from this “ glorious Italian” isour author. ‘‘ From the base of the 
corolla of the Harebell,” says Dr. Lindley, “and consequently from the 
summit of the ovary, spring five stamens, whose filaments are broad, firm, 
and fringed, curving inwards at the base, and bending over the top of the 


BELL-FLOWER TRIBE 201 


ovary as if to guard it from injury: these points touch the style, and keep 
the anthers parallel and in contact with it, till they shrivel up and fall back, 
which happens immediately after the flower unfolds. The style is a taper 
stiff column, about the length of the corolla, and shorter than the stamens. 
It is covered all over, up to the very tips of the stigma, with stiff hairs ; 
which Nature has provided to sweep the pollen out of the cells of the anthers, 
as the style passes through them in lengthening; if it were not for this 
simple but effectual contrivance, as the anthers burst as soon as ever the 
corolla opens, their pollen would drop out of the nodding flowers, and be lost, 
before the stigma was expanded and ready to receive the fertilizing influence. 

“Next let us look at the ovary. This organ is, in the Harebell, a case 
containing three cavities, or cells, surrounding a central axis; in each cell 
there is a large fleshy receptacle, over which is spread a multitude of ovules. 
After the stigma is fertilized, the corolla and the stamens drop off; the 
sepals harden, enlarge, and collapse ; all the parts become browner and 
thicker ; stout ribs appear on the substance of the ovary, which droops still 
more than the flower itself; and at last a general dryness, hardness and 
brownness announce that the ripening of the fruit is accomplished. But how 
are the dust-like seeds ever to find their way out of the lidless box, or to 
penetrate its tough sides? Considering what happens in so many other 
plants, we should naturally expect that it would take place by a separation 
of the edges of the three carpels into valves near their points; but upon 
looking at the top of the ovary, between the sepals, we find that part still 
tougher than the sides, and without the slightest appearance of an opening. 
It is by a rending of the thinnest part of the sides of the fruit in the fork of 
tke principal ribs that these valves are produced, and that Nature provides 
for the escape of the seeds; the rending takes place upon the final drying of 
the sides of the fruit, when every part becomes stretched so tight, that any 
weak portion must of necessity give way. As the stretching takes place 
with uniformity, and as the skin at the forks of the ribs is always more 
tender than any other part, the opening of the valves will consequently 
occur with the same invariable certainty as the formation of the seeds.” 

This exquisitely adapted contrivance of His hand who has made ‘‘summer 
and winter,” and decked with beauty the lilies of the field, is not confined to 
the Harebell, but is shared by all the plants of the genus. But there is a 
significance in the arrangement of stamens and pistil, and the earlier 
maturity of the former, that was not realized in Lindley’s day. It is now 
known that the pollen is not stored up until the stigmas expand, but is all 
carried off by bees before that event, and much of it is used for the fertilisa- 
tion of Harebells that have flowered a little earlier, From the hanging 
position of the flower, and the fact that the inner walls are studded with 
stiff hairs, bees find it more convenient to alight on the style and climb up 
it to the honey-glands. In so doing their hairy faces and under sides clear 
off much of the pollen, a process completed by the visits of successive bees. 
Then the closed stigmas stretch out their arms, and the alighting bees bring 
their pollen-smeared under sides in contact with the sensitive surface and 
effect fertilisation with pollen brought from a younger flower. 

5. Giant Bell-flower (C. latifolia).—Stem erect, slightly angular ; 

1.—26 


202 CAMPANULACEA# 


leaves egg-shaped and lanceolate, tapering, rough, doubly serrated lower 
ones stalked; stalks one-flowered ; calyx smooth, its segments lanceolate, 
pointed, and finely serrated; perennial. This is a very conspicuous, 
though not a generally distributed plant. It grows in moist shady woods, 
and is very rare in our midland and southern counties, though less so in the 
north of England, while it is frequent in those of Scotland. The stem is two 
or three feet high, stout and strong, with very large stalked flowers of 
purplish blue, which in the Scottish woods are often of a pure white. They 
are hairy within, and far exceed in size those of any other of our native Bell- 
flowers. This plant is often called Canterbury-bell, though C. médium, 
a German species grown in our gardens, is also so distinguished by many. 
Gerarde says of the Canterbury-bell, “It doe grow very plentifully in the 
lower woods and hedgerows of Kent, about Canterbury, Sittingbourne, 
Southfleet, Greenhithe, and several other places.” He calls it also Haske- 
woort and Throtewoort ; but his description evidently refers to the Nettle- 
leaved Bell-flower. The Giant species, however, in all probability, was the 
first plant termed Canterbury-bell, if, as we believe, the opinion of a learned 
ecclesiologist as to the origin of its name be the correct one. 

The name of Canterbury-bell may possibly have been given to the plant 
from the place of its growth, but it is far more likely that, as Dr. Rock has 
suggested, it was so called from its resemblance to the hand-bells which were 
placed on poles, and rung by pilgrims when proceeding to the shrine of 
Thomas 4 Becket. The details of these processions to the tomb of the 
“Dblisful martir” have been rendered familiar to us by Chaucer and other old 
writers ; and William Thorpe, a Lollard, who was, in 1407, examined by 
Bishop Arundel, describes them in no measured terms. He says: “ Everie 
towne that they come through, what with the noice of their singing, and 
with the sound of their piping, and with the jangling of their Canterburie bels, 
and with the barking out of dogges after them, they make more noice than 
if the king came there away with all his clarions and many other minstrels.” 

Coventry-bells, Harvest-bells, Mariets, Mercury’s Violets, and Wood Bell- 
flower, were also common names for different species in the olden time ; and 
it is quite probable that Clare alludes to the Nettle-leaved species when he 
writes of the Canterbury-bell, as it is the commonest of any of the large- 
flowered kinds :— 

“« And down the hay-fields, wading ’bove the knees, 
Through seas of waving grass, what days I’ve gone, 
Cheating the hopes of many labouring bees, 
By cropping blossoms they were perch’d upon ; 
As thyme among the hills, and lambtoe knots, 
And the wild stalking Canterbury-bell, 
By hedgerow side, or bushy bordering spots, 
That loves in shade and solitude to dwell.” 

6. Creeping Bell-flower (C. rapunculotdes).—Stem erect, slightly 
angular, leafy, scarcely branched ; leaves rough, unequally notched at the 
margin, lower ones heart-shaped, on long stalks, upper ones lanceolate and 
sessile ; stalks one-flowered ; flowers forming a one-sided leafy raceme ; calyx 
segments slender and entire, at length turning backwards ; rootstock creeping 
and perennial. This is a large and handsome species, having a stem two feet 


BELL-FLOWER TRIBE 203 


high, and bearing, in July and August, large handsome blue flowers ; the 
leaves gradually narrowing on the upper part of the stem. It might be 
cultivated for the same purpose as the rampion, as its roots have a similar 
flavour, and are equally wholesome. It is a rare plant in woods and fields, 
and occurs in many parts of the country where it has become naturalised— 
for it is not indigenous. 

7. Nettle-leaved Bell-flower (C. trachélium).—Stem angular ; leaves 
coarsely doubly serrated, lower ones heart-shaped, long-stalked, upper nearly 
sessile and pointed ; flower-stalks axillary, few-flowered ; calyx segments 
lanceolate and erect ; root perennial. This is a very common flower, easily 
known from all the other species by its leaves, shaped like those of the 
common nettle. It is a very rough plant, and has a stem about two feet high ; 
bearing, from July to October, rather large flowers of a deep purple, or more 
rarely, as in some parts of Hampshire, of a white hue. It is a handsome 
addition to the wild nosegay gathered from wood or copse or bushy hedge- 
bank ; and we have, in Kent, seen its bells employed for the same rustic 
purpose as that to which Clare refers, in Northamptonshire :— 


‘* When glow-worm found in lanes remote 
Is murder’d for its shining coat, 
And put in flowers that Nature weaves, 
With hollow shapes and silken leaves, 
Such as the Canterbury-bell, 
Serving for lamp or lantern well.” 


This plant, as well as some other of the species, was formerly used in 
complaints of the throat, and shared with other kinds the name of Throat- 
wort. 

8 Clustered Bell-flower (C. glomerdta).—Stem angular, simple, nearly 
smooth ; leaves with very small serratures, lowermost stalked, egg-shaped, 
somewhat lanceolate and heart-shaped at the base ; upper leaves sessile, half- 
clasping, egg-shaped, acute ; flowers sessile in terminal and axillary clusters ; 
root perennial. This handsome Bell-flower is readily known by the clusters 
of erect, dark, downy, purple, funnel-shaped flowers, surrounded by bracts 
about half their length. These appear in July and August. The height of 
the stem varies from three or four inches to a foot; and when the plant is 
grown in the garden, it is sometimes a foot anda half high. It is not an 
uncommon plant on dry hilly pastures in England, where the soil is of clay 
or chalk, but in Scotland is chiefly confined to the eastern counties. In the 
little village of Bartlow, in Cambridgeshire, there are four remarkable hills, 
supposed to have been thrown up by the Danes, as monumental memorials 
of the dreadful battle fought in 1016, between Canute and Edmund Iron- 
side. The author, some years since, found this Clustered Bell-flower 
largely scattered about these mounds, and on asking of some cottagers the 
name of the flower, was told that it was the Dane’s-blood, and so called 
because it sprang up from the blood of the Danes. On further inquiry of 
people in the neighbourhood, she found it universally known there by this 
name, which is doubtless a very old local one. Several slight varieties of 
this plant occur, which are by foreign botanists described as distinct species ; 
thus, if the plant grows on a rich soil, or is transplanted to such, it loses the 

26—2 


204 CAMPANULACEA® 


intensity of the blue tint. It is sometimes found in gardens, but is less 
prized there than the most ornamental Bell-flower of the parterre, the 
pyramidal species, C. pyramiddlis, which our old writers called Steeple-milkie 
Bell-flower. This grows wild in Southern Europe ; and in other countries, 
as in ours, its handsome wide-spread blue or white flowers, trained over a 
hsep or spreading frame, may often be seen in the window, either of mansion 
or cottage. It is much used in Holland to place before the fireplace in 
summer. 

It has been noted that the three species last mentioned have different 
habits as to flowering: in C. rapunculoides, the lowest bud opens first ; in 
C. trachelium, the uppermost is the first to expand; whilst in C. glomerata, 
the central one of the cluster claims precedence. 


* * Corolla bell-shaped ; capsule somewhat globose, 


9. Ivy-leaved Bell-flower (C. hederdcea).—Stem weak, thread-like ; 
leaves all stalked, roundish, heart-shaped, angular, and toothed; flowers 
solitary, on long stalks; perennial This pretty little plant would be 
known at a glance from any other wild flower, by its bright green ivy-shaped 
leaves, and in its season of blossom, by its tiny blue bells. A very lovely 
little plant it is; and it is not an unfrequent one in the south and west of 
England, growing beside the bog asphodel and the graceful bog pimpernel, 
and others of the lovely flowers which peep up from among the large mosses 
to which the streamlet brings a perpetual emerald greenness. It is abundant 
in Cornwall ; and from July to September large masses of the plant may be 
found upon the moorlands, with their blue bells scattered by thousands among 
the delicate leaves which lie on the slender branches. The flower-stalks are 
hardly thicker than a sewing-thread ; every breath of wind stirs the bells to 
motion, and they would be too small to furnish a canopy to a house-fly. The 
plant is usually about five or six inches in height, but when growing beside 
some rush or nodding hair-grass, it avails itself of the aid of its stouter 
neighbour, and climbs up to the height of twelve inches or more. Gerarde, 
who calls it the Tender Bell-flower, says it was first seen in this kingdom by 
Master George Bowles, who in 1632 found it on the dry banks of Montgomery- 
shire, for a long distance on the highway, though such a situation would 
certainly be a very unusual one for this plant. It is most abundant in North 
Wales in damp places. Some authors separate this species from Campanula 
and call it Wahlenbergia hederacea, because it differs from the other species 
in its method of dispersing its seeds. As was explained under the Harebell, 
the capsule splits below the calyx, but in the Ivy-leaved Bell-flower the seed- 
vessel opens at the top, inside the calyx. 


* * * Corolla nearly wheel-shaped ; capsule linear oblong, opening by lateral pores 
between the segments of the calyx. 


10. Corn Bell-flower (C. hgbrida).—Stem either simple or branched 
from the base; leaves oblong, waved, with rounded notches ; corolla widely 
spreading, shorter than the calyx-segments; capsule triangular; annual. 
This is a small plant, less like a Bell-flower than any of the other species, as 
its corolla spreads quite out, so as to be almost flat. The stem is from four 


I ROUND HEADED RAMPION 3. ANNUAL SCABIOUS 


Phytenma orbiculare Jasione montana 
Z. SPIKED RAMPION 4&4. ACRID LOBELIA 
IE; spicatum Lobelia trens . 


5 WATER LOBELIA 
L. dortmanna. 


Pl, 135. 


BELL-FLOWER TRIBE 205 


to twelve inches high, rough and wiry ; the plant has waved oblong leaves, 
with a few terminal flowers of dull bluish-lilac, surrounded by the long calyx- 
segments, and expanding from June to September. It occurs on dry chalky 
corn-fields, in the middle and south of England, extending as far north as 
Durham, but occurring chiefly in the eastern counties. This species is, by 
some writers, included in the genus Specularia, and is very nearly allied to 
the Venus’s Looking-glass of our gardens, which is a Corn Bell-flower of 
Southern Europe. This last is said formerly to have grown wild in our 
fields, but was most probably introduced from the other side of the Channel, 
among the grain. Gerarde says of our Corn Bell-flower, “I found it in a 
field among the corne, by Greenhithe, as I went from thence unto Dartford, 
in Kent, and in many other places thereabout, but not elsewhere ; from 
whence I brought of the seedes for my garden, where they came up of them- 
selves, from yeere to yeere, by falling of the seedes.” 


2. RAMPION (Phiyteuma). 


1. Round-headed Rampion (P. orbiculdre).—Flowers in a round 
terminal head, with lanceolate bracts; lower leaves notched, heart-shaped, 
stalked ; upper narrow and sessile; perennial. This is a very singular 
plant, having a leafy stem, a foot or a foot and a half high, on which, in 
July, stands a round head of the most rich blue flowers. After these hand- 
some blossoms have departed, the plant is remarkable for the heads of fruit, 
which form a perfect oval, and have their calyxes remaining and spreading 
out in a starry form. This Rampion is rare, growing on chalky soil in the 
south of England, as the open downs of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Wilts. 
Not a leaf is to be seen in July about its root, for, as in the Harebell, by the 
time of flowering the foliage has all withered away. At first the petals of 
this flower are united by their edges as in Campanula, but they afterwards 
separate. In the next species, however, the petals separate only partially, 
the tips continuing to be joined together. 

2. Spiked Rampion (P. spicdétwm).—Heads of flowers oblong, of fruit 
long and cylindrical; lower leaves egg-shaped and heart-shaped, somewhat 
doubly serrate, stalked ; upper leaves slender, lanceolate, and sessile ; bracts 
slender. This rare species has been found only in Sussex, where it grows 
in the woods and thickets about Waldron. Its stem is one or two feet high ; 
each stem bearing, in June and July, a solitary terminal head of cream- 
coloured flowers. The spike of flowers is from two to four inches long. The 
root is edible, and was formerly cultivated and eaten, either as a salad, or 
boiled. It is still a common vegetable in Switzerland ; and it is open to 
question whether its presence in this country is not entirely due to former 
cultivation. 


3. SHEEP’S-BIT (Jaszdne). 


Annual Sheep’s-bit, or Scabious (J. montéina).—Leaves oblong, 
somewhat blunt, wavy ; flowers stalked; stem simple or branched, downy ; 
bracts smooth or hairy; calyx-segments narrow and bristly; annual or 
biennial. The heath and open down are very beautiful at Midsummer, often 
reminding one of Tennyson’s words :— 


206 LOBELIACEA 


‘*Calm and deep peace on this high wold, 
And on these dews that drench the furze, 
And all the silvery gossamers 
That twinkle into green and gold.” 

The Sheep’s-bit is often found growing there among furze and heather, from 
June to September ; for it flourishes in profusion on the gravelly or heathy 
soil of sunny slopes, having dense hemispherical heads of flowers of a bright 
blue colour, with a leafy involucre below them, on stems from six inches to 
two feet high, several of which arise from the crown of the root. These 
flowers are somewhat like those of the Scabious; but the plant may be 
distinguished from those of that genus by the anthers being united at their 
base. The French call this Sheep’s-bit Jasione; the Dutch, Schaapskruad. 
It grows on dry places in Sweden, where it is termed Mouke; and the 
Spanish and Portuguese call it Jasione. It has, in the union of its anthers, 
an affinity with the compound flowers, from which it is distinguished, how- 
ever, by its two-celled capsule. It has a disagreeable odour, which when the 
plant is bruised becomes more powerful; the whole herb is milky, and is 
sometimes eaten by sheep. Linnzus says that these animals are very fond 
of its flowers. 

It varies very much in size, according to the degree of dryness in its 
habitat. 


Order XLVIII. LOBELIACEA—LOBELIA TRIBE. 


Calyx growing from the ovary, 5-lobed or entire; petals united, in- 
serted in the calyx ; stamens 5, free from the corolla, and alternating with 
its lobes; anthers united ; ovary inferior, of 1—3 many-seeded cells, opening 
at the top. The plants composing this order are either herbs or small shrubs, 
with alternate leaves, and without stipules. They contain a bitter milky 
juice, which in the plants of warm regions, where the species are more 
abundant, becomes very acrid. By some authors this is regarded as a sub- 
order of Campanulacez. 

LopeLiA.—Corolla 2-lipped, the upper part split to the base of the tube ; 
upper lip smaller and erect, lower spreading, 3-cleft. Named in honour of 
Matthias Lobel, a Flemish botanist. 


LOBELIA (Lobélia). 


1. Acrid Lobelia (Z. drens).—Stem nearly upright; lower leaves 
inversely egg-shaped, stalked, slightly toothed; upper ones lanceolate, 
sessile, serrated; perennial. This is a very rare plant, found, indeed, 
only on heathy land in Cornwall and Dorset. It has a leafy, somewhat 
rough stem, a foot or more high, and the light bluish-purple flowers are 
downy externally. They grow in erect, leafy, lax clusters, and expand in 
June and July. It is a noxious plant, full of a milky acrid juice, which will 
raise a blister on the skin, though neither of our native species can at all 
compare with several well-known foreign Lobelias in this respect. Some of 
these have highly poisonous juices. Thus L. longifléra, of the West Indies, 
even destroys horses feeding upon it, and is hence called Chatta cavallo. It 


LOBELIA TRIBE 207 


is grown in gardens in Spain, where it is termed Rabienta cavallos. Still 
more noxious than this is the L. tupa, of which Feuillée says, that even the 
odour of the flower causes excessive vomiting, and that, if applied to the 
skin, it produces violent inflammation and pain. The juice of several species 
of Lobelia, if it touches the eyes, causes immediate pain; and such also, 
doubtless, would be the result with our native acrid kind. Some of the 
species, however, seem innoxious, and Thunberg mentions that the root of 
a Lobelia is commonly eaten in Japan; while in the case of L. tenella the 
milky juice is mild and insipid. Several plants of the genus, growing in 
tropical regions, have a thick milky juice, which contains caoutchoue. 

Neither of our wild species is common, but our gardens contain several 
well-known and handsome Lobelias. The rich scarlet Cardinal-flower, 
L. cardindlis, so frequent on our borders, was mentioned by Parkinson in 
the time of Charles I. as a “brave plant.” It grows commonly by rivers 
and ditches, in many parts of North America. Still more brilliant in hue 
are the Refulgent and Splendid Lobelias (L. fulgens and L. spléndens), which 
Humboldt and Bonpland introduced to our gardens, the first flowers of this 
kind grown there having been obtained from the seeds in the herbarium 
which these travellers brought with them from Mexico. The Splendid 
Lobelia is beautifully dashed with claret colour. The Cardinal-flower, so 
called from some resemblance in its blossoms to the scarlet hat of the 
cardinal, has its synonym in most countries of Europe. Thus, the Germans 
call it Kardinalsblume ; the Dutch, Kardinalsbloem, and the Italians, Fior 
Cardinale. The little LZ. grécilis, so frequent in gardens, is, like our wild 
species, of blue colour, but the prevailing hue of the genus is scarlet. 

2. Water Lobelia (ZL. dortménna).—Stem simple; leaves almost 
cylindrical, of two parallel tubes, blunt; flowers in a distant raceme ; 
perennial, This very elegant aquatic plant is found in abundance in the 
picturesque lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland ; but it is not confined 
to them, occurring in several pieces of water, especially such as lie among 
mountains in the north and west of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and in 
several parts of North Wales. The gravelly bases of our northern lakes are, 
in July and August, often covered with a thick matted carpet formed by its 
leaves, the flowering portion of the stem being usually the only part of the 
plant which rises above the water. This stalk or stem is slender, almost . 
leafless, a foot or more high, having a long and distant cluster of light blue 
drooping flowers. A number of fibres creep forth and descend from. a firm 
white fleshy root-stock; and the root as well as herbage of the flower 
contains a milky juice, which is much less acrid than that of most of the 
species. It received its specific name from Dortmann, an apothecary, who 
first sent it to Clusius, 


Order XLIX. VACCINIEAZ—CRANBERRY TRIBE. 


Calyx growing from the ovary, of 4—6 lobes, which are sometimes from 
their shallowness scarcely perceptible ; corolla of one petal, lobed like the 
calyx; stamens not united, twice as many as the lobes of the corolla, inserted 


208 VACCINIEAD 


into the disk of the ovary ; anthers with two cells, opening by two pores, 
and often furnished with two awns; ovary with a flat disk, 4—10-celled ; 
cells one or many-seeded; style and stigma simple; fruit a juicy berry 
crowned by the remains of the calyx, containing many minute seeds. This 
order consists of small shrubs, with undivided, alternate, often leathery, 
leaves, chiefly inhabiting mountainous regions, or those of high northern 
latitudes. The bark and leaves are astringent, and the berries have an acid 
and pleasant flavour. 

WHORTLEBERRY, CRANBERRY, ETC. (Vaccinium).— Calyx 4—5-lobed ; 
lobes sometimes very shallow; corolla bell-shaped, or wheel-shaped, 
4—5-cleft; stamens 8—10; berry globose, 4—5-celled, many-seeded. 
Name of doubtful origin. 


WHORTLEBERRY, CRANBERRY, ETC. (Vaccinium). 
* Leaves not evergreen ; anthers with 2 spurs at the back. 


1. Bilberry, or Whortleberry (V. myrtillus).—Stem acutely angular ; 
leaves egg-shaped, serrated, smooth; flowers solitary; perennial. This 
elegant shrub, which is sometimes called also Whinberry, is very abundant 
on some heathy, stony, and mountainous places. It is rarely more than two 
feet in height, and much branched, numbers of these little bushes being 
generally found together ; for the Bilberry is a social plant. The wax-like 
drooping flowers appear in May among the delicate leaves: they are 
greenish-white, tinged with red. 

The internal arrangements of these flowers are curious. The anther-cells 
are drawn out into the form of tubes which open only at their extremities, 
whilst from their backs stand out little spurs, two from each stamen. ‘The 
stamens all stand with the anther-tips pressed against the central style, so 
that no pollen can fall out. Now, it is impossible for any long-tongued 
insect to get at the honey in that jar-like blossom without pressing against 
one or more of the anther-spurs, and in that case the anther-tip is pushed 
away from the style and the pollen falls out on the insect’s face, so that on 
visiting another flower the pollen will be rubbed upon the stigma which 
partially blocks the entrance to the flower. 

As summer advances, the foliage assumes a rich, deep, myrtle-like 
verdure ; and the whortleberries, or “ whorts,” as country children call them, 
afford a very pleasant refreshment. These fruits, which are black, and 
covered with a blue-grey bloom, are very juicy, and their quality is so 
astringent that they are a common medicine in Arran and the Western 
Highlands. The Highlanders also eat them with milk, and make them into 
tarts and jellies, mingling them, too, with their whisky, to give it a higher 
relish. An old herbalist praises these berries asa remedy for many maladies, 
and says, “It is a pity they are not more generally used.” When fermented, 
they afford an intoxicating liquor, and they are mixed with some wines to 
heighten their colour. 

Various experiments have been made with these fruits in staining paper 
and dyeing linen of a violet colour, and they seem to afford a rich hue. The 


1 WHORTLEBERRY 3 COWBE RILY 
Vaccinium tyrtillus V. vilis idava 
2. GREAT BILLGERRY 1 CRAN BERRY 
V. uliginosum Vo oxyvoeras 


Pi. 156, 


CRANBERRY TRIBE 209 


moorfowls well know the worth of whortleberries as food. The young 


mountaineer eats them with delight, and many could say with Robert 
Nicholls— 


‘* And here are rich Blaeberries, black and wild, 
Beneath the beach-tree’s thickest branches growing : 
This makes me once again a wayward child, 
A pilgrimage into the woodland going— 
The haunt of squirrels and of wood-mouse knowing. 
And plucking black Blaeberries all the day, 
Till eastward mountain-shadows night was throwing 
And sending me upon my homeward way, 
Fill’d both in soul and sense with the old forest grey.” 


Blaeberry is the name chiefly used for the fruit in the north. In the 
neighbourhoods of moorlands these fruits are often gathered, and carried 
about for sale; and in the West of England, and in Surrey and Hampshire, 
many a merry party wanders forth to go a “whorting ” over hills and rocky 
crags. Goats browse on the young branches, and sheep will occasionally eat 
the plant, though cows and horses refuse it. Coleridge gives us a beautiful 
sketch of just such a spot as this plant often serves to adorn, a spot which, 
as we read the page, the mind involuntarily pictures : 
‘*T find myself 
Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful 
Of forest trees, the lady of the wood !) 


Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock 
That overbrows the cataract. 


At my feet 
The whortleberries are bedew’d with spray, 
Dash’d upwards by the furious waterfall. 
How solemnly the pendent ivy mass 
~Swings in its winnow ! all the air is calm.” 

Both this species and the Cowberry are very abundant in the north of 
Europe, the forests in Sweden being often quite covered with different kinds 
of Whortleberry. It is well distributed over our country, but appears to be 
entirely absent from Cambridge and Suffolk. The Swedes call this species 
Blabar, and the Cowberry Lingou. The Lapps call the Whortleberry Jokno. 
In France the plant is called Lairette, and in Germany Heidelbeere ; while the 
Dutch call it Blaubessen, and the Spaniards and Italians Mirtillo. The fruit 
is much eaten in Poland with cream and sugar, and the plant is in that 
country termed Borrowki czarne. i 

2. Bog Whortleberry, or Great Bilberry (V. wligindésum).—Stem 
rounded ; leaves inversely egg-shaped, entire, glaucous, and veined beneath ; 
stalks one-flowered; perennial. This is the Blaeberry of the botanist ; 
but, in country places, all the Whortleberries share this name. It is quite an 
Alpine plant, often growing almost at the summits of mountains where there 
are bogs, both in the Highlands of Scotland and the north of England. This 
species is taller than the last, its stem is more woody, and its more strongly 
veined foliage is of a glaucous hue. The drooping flesh-coloured flowers, 
which appear in May, are also smaller, and grow nearer together ; and the 
black berries, though larger, and juicy and pleasant, are yet inferior to those 
of the last species. They are said to have narcotic properties, and, if eaten 
in large numbers, to produce a sensation of giddiness; while, if taken when 

ll. —27 


210 VACCINIEA— CRANBERRY TRIBE 


overripe, even in smaller quantities, they in some persons cause headache. 
Many of the vintners of France are said to use them in colouring their wines, 
and they yield a highly volatile and intoxicating spirit. The Alpine birds 
feed on these fruits ; and the leaves of the shrub, mixed with the club mosses 
which so often abound on the spot where the plant grows, are used by the 
Icelanders in dyeing woollen yarn of a yellow colour. 


* * Leaves evergreen ; anthers without bristles. 


3. Red Whortleberry, Cowberry (V/. vitis-idwa).—Leaves inversely 
ege-shaped, dotted beneath, the margins rolled back; flowers in terminal 
drooping clusters; perennial. This is a low, somewhat straggling shrub, 
with firm evergreen leaves, which would at once remind us of the box. It is 
common in the North on mountainous heaths, and bears, in May and June, 
small pink flowers with four déep lobes. The berries are red, and they may 
be made into an excellent jelly, which is far superior to that of the red 
currant for eating with game or venison. ‘They are not, however, well fitted 
for eating in their uncooked state; for they are both acid and bitter in 
flavour, and very astringent in their properties. In Derbyshire, the cow- 
berry tart is a common dish. In Sweden these fruits are very extensively 
used, and the jelly into which they are made is eaten with most kinds of 
roast meat. Linnzus tells us that they were sent in large quantities from 
West Bothnia to Stockholm for pickling, and that a very excellent gargle for 
inflamed throats is made from them. Small cuttings of this plant are, in 
Norway, placed in gardens around the edges of the flower-beds, instead of 
box. A Pennsylvanian species (V’. tenéllum) furnishes a superior fruit ; and 
another plant of this genus (V. formosum) is, in China, esteemed a sacred 
shrub, and its flowers are gathered at the commencement of each year, and 
plaecd as offerings on the shrines of the temples. 

4. Marsh Whortleberry, Cranberry (V. oxycéccos).—Stem very slender, 
prostrate, rooting; leaves egg-shaped, glaucous beneath, the margins rolled 
back ; corolla wheel-shaped, with four deep reflexed segments; perennial. 
This is a very local plant, growing on those wide-spread heathy bogs which 
are carpeted by the bright green mosses, and which are dangerous ground to 
any but the experienced footstep. On many tracts of this kind, in England, 
Scotland, and Ireland, the low straggling Cranberry bush grows in patches, 
its tough wiry stems, from eight to ten inches long, bearing in June the 
solitary terminal flowers, which are on long stalks, of a bright red colour, and 
have their segments turned back in a remarkable manner. The pleasant 
acid flavour of the cranberry is well known, and this fruit is gathered both 
in England and Scotland for sale. Lightfoot mentions that twenty or thirty 
pounds’ worth were sold each market-day, for five or six weeks together, at 
Langton, on the borders of Cumberland ; and it there forms to this day no 
inconsiderable article of trade, though most of the cranberries which we see 
in the shops are sent in casks from America, and large quantities of these 
fruits are also exported from Poland, Russia, and Germany, into the various 
countries of Europe. Many people in Cumberland make wine from cran- 
berries. They are also preserved in bottles, the fruit needing no preparation, 
requiring only to be kept in a dry situation. Our English cranberries, 


ERICACEAA—_HEATH TRIBE 211 


though not so large as those received from America, are not only equal, but 
even superior to them in flavour. Gerarde calls these fruits Fen berries. 
“They grow,” he says, “in fennie places in Cheshire and Staffordshire, 
where I have found them in great plentie.” The Dutch term them Fen- 
grapes. The English name of Cranberry is thought to have been derived 
from the flower-stalks, which are crooked at the top, and which, before the 
expansion of the blossom, resemble the arching neck and head of the crane. 
When packed in casks, these berries undergo a fermentation during a voyage, 
which somewhat injures their flavour. They might be readily cultivated on 
any marshy lands; and it has been said that their growth on such spots 
would prove remunerative, as a single plant soon covers a large space with 
its progeny. In Sweden, where the shrub is abundant, the berries are not 
eaten, and were, some years since, used solely for cleaning plate. They are 
a good astringent, and would probably aid in restoring the lost appetite. 
They were formerly highly praised for their use in pestilential fevers. The 
French call the plant Canneberge ; the Germans, Moosebeere ; the Dutch, 
Veenbessen ; the Italians, Ossicocco ; the Spaniards, Vacernia lagunosa. The 
North American species (V. macrocdrpum) has been found on Loughton Bog, 
Flintshire, but was in all probability planted there. 


Order L. ERICACEA_HEATH TRIBE. 


Calyx 4 or 5 cleft, nearly equal, inferior, remaining till the ripening of 
the fruit ; corolla 4—5-cleft, often withering, and remaining attached to the 
plant ; stamens of the same number as the segments of the corolla, or twice 
as many, inserted with the corolla, or but slightly attached to its base; 
anthers hard and dry, the cells separating at one extremity, where they are 
furnished with spurs or awns, and at the other opening by pores ; ovary not 
adhering to the calyx, surrounded at the base by a disk or by scales, many- 
celled, many-seeded; style 1, straight; stigma 1; fruit a berry, or dry 
capsule, many-seeded. The order consists of shrubs with opposite or 
whorled leaves, which are often rigid and evergreen, without stipules. Their 
properties are generally astringent, and some plants, like the Kalmia and 
Rhododendrons, are poisonous. The Heaths are most abundant in Southern 
Africa, especially at the Cape of Good Hope, and most of the brilliant and - 
elegant species of our hot-houses are brought from that region. Our native 
plants of this family often cover large tracts of country, clustering in such 
multitudes over them, that the heath land owes its name to the heather 
which covers it. 

1. HeatH (Erica).—Calyx deeply 4-cleft; corolla bell-shaped, or egg- 
shaped, 4-cleft ; stamens 8; capsule 4-celled. Name from the Greek, erico, 
to break, from some fancied medicinal properties. 

2. Line (Callina).—Calyx of 4 coloured sepals, which are longer than 
the corolla, having at the base outside 4 green bracts; corolla bell-shaped ; 
stamens 8; capsule 4-celled. Name from the Greek, callino, to cleanse or 
adorn, either from the use of its twigs in brooms, or for the beauty of its 
flowers. 


212 ERICACEAA 


3. MENzIbSIA.—Calyx deeply 4—5-cleft ; corolla inflated; stamens 8—10; 
capsule 4—5-celled. Named in memory of Archibald Menzies, a Scottish 
botanist. 

4, AzAtEA—Calyx deeply 5-cleft ; corolla bell-shaped, 5-cleft ; stamens 5 ; 
anthers bursting lengthways ; capsule 2—3-celled and valved. Name from 
the Greek, azdleos, parched, from the nature of the places on which it grows. 

5, ANDROMEDA.—Calyx deeply 5-cleft ; corolla egg-shaped or bell-shaped, 
with a 5-cleft reflexed border; stamens 10; anthers with two awns at the 
back ; capsule dry, 5-celled. 

6. STRAWBERRY-TREE (Arbutus).—Calyx deeply 5-cleft; corolla egg- 
shaped, falling early; stamens 10; fruit 5-celled, many-seeded. Name 
from ar, rough, and boise, a bush, in Celtic. 

7. BEAR-BERRY (Arctostdphylos).—Calyx deeply 5-cleft; corolla egg- 
shaped, falling early ; fruit fleshy, 5-celled, one-seeded. Named from aretos, 
a bear, and staphule, a grape, in allusion to the fruit. 


1. HEATH (Erica). 
* Corolla globose or cup-shaped, stamens included. 


1. Ciliated Heath (Z£. cilidris)—Leaves 4 in a whorl, egg-shaped, 
downy above, fringed with hair, the margins rolled over; flowers in 
terminal one-sided racemes; anthers without awns; mouth of the corolla 
oblique; perennial. This plant is far more beautiful than any other of 
our native heaths, having, in June and July, bright crimson flowers of 
exquisite oblong form, and half an inch in length, growing down the upper 
part of its stem, while the sepals are most delicately fringed with hairs. The 
stems are long and straggling, and the foliage of rich green. It is a very 
local plant, growing on heaths, as at Carclew, in Cornwall, and about 
Wareham, Dorsetshire. On one or two of the Cornish heath-lands it is as 
plentiful as the purple species, HZ. cinérea, is in England generally. A hybrid 
between this species and the next occurs, and is known as var. watsont. 

2. Cross-leaved Heath (LH. tétralix).—Leaves 4 in a whorl, narrow, 
fringed; flowers in terminal heads; flower-stalks white with down; 
perennial, This species is, during July and August, very delicate and 
pretty, with its drooping cluster of pale pink, wax-like flowers, which are 
almost white beneath. It is scarcely excelled in loveliness even by the 
beautiful Heaths cherished in our greenhouses. It is abundant on moors and 
bogs, sometimes blooming on till late in autumn, having the lower part of 
its stem much branched, and very leafy, its younger leaves downy on the upper 
surface, and its style usually included within its pink bell. The arrange- 
ment of the stamens and pistil is very similar to that of the Whortleberry, 
already described ; but instead of the anthers opening at their tips, those of 
LE. tetraliz open by side slits. As the whole series of anthers are pressed 
close together round the style, these orifices are effectually closed, until the 
effort of a bee to reach the honey presses upon the awns and dislocates the 
anther-union, with the result that the pollen falls upon the bee’s face. 

3. Mackay’s Heath (£. mackéii).—Leaves 4 in a whorl, egg-shaped, 
fringed, smooth above, almost white beneath; flowers in heads somewhat 


HEATH TRIBE 213 


umbellate ; flower-stalks nearly smooth. This species much resembles the 
last, its broad egg-shaped leaves with their upper surface and midrib smooth 
being the most marked distinction. The stem is irregularly branched below, 
and the flowers, which appear in July and August, are smaller, and of a 
deeper purple than the last. It has been found in Galway, Ireland, and is 
regarded by Hooker as a sub-species of H. tetraliz. 

4. Fine-leaved Heath (Z. cinérea).—Leaves in threes, very narrow, 
smooth; flowers egg-shaped, in crowded, whorled, leafy clusters ; 
perennial. It is to the beautiful drooping reddish-purple bells of this species, 
mingled with the paler purple flowers of the Ling, that the wide heath-lands 
of England and Scotland owe most of their summer beauty, and present the 
rich hue which may be descried miles away. These two plants are usually 
included in the term Heather, though many botanical writers use that word as 
relating only to the Ling. Our fathers probably intended either by their word 
Hadden, which is the old name for Heather ; and until late years, the Ling 
was placed in the Heath genus, and termed Erica vulgaris. Mr. Thompson, 
remarking of the Heaths in general, says: ‘These plants, as their names 
imply, are found always on bog soil, and the component parts of that earth 
may be taken as similar everywhere, yet it cannot be denied that the Heaths 
of different contiguous hills are extremely different both in kind and degree. 
Red Heather (H. cinérea) is the only species found for miles together on the 
greywacke of the Isle of Man; J. ¢étralixz the only species for several hundred 
yards on Blackstone Edge; the Ling is the only species for miles on the 
granite of Goat-fell, in the Isle of Arran. Each of these species may be seen 
in sufficient quantity wherever bog soil is found, but they may reasonably be 
claimed by those districts only where with equal climates they are produced 
in greatest luxuriance ; and few observers of the common features of a land- 
scape can have failed to notice the great diversity of character in these 
universal natives of our moors, on the different geological arrangements of 
the country. Few can have omitted to remark the total want of them on 
bogs whose substratum is chalk or mountain lime; and many have been 
delighted with their abundance and surpassing beauty on the primitive 
ranges of Wales and Scotland. The Ling of Pont Aberglaslyn, near 
Beddgelert, yields to none in the richness of its flowers; and that of the 
gravel range of Avan, in the Frith of Clyde, is often three and a half feet in 
height, arborescent and erect, like the finest specimens of Cape Heaths culti- 
vated in our greenhouses. The poor natives of that island make an 
economical substitute for hemp from its twigs; and the roots occasionally 
thrown out of the soil by the mountain torrent are two inches in thickness, 
and capable of a high polish, being nearly as hard as ebony. The Cape 
of Good Hope itself, which has ‘supplied our exotic collectors with nearly 
300 species of this genus, is one of the finest granite ranges in the world.” 

Heather tall and stout like this is rare, but everyone can recall wide 
tracts of land which the plants cover in great luxuriance, especially in Scot- 
land, which the poet has distinguished as the 


‘‘Land of brown Heath and shaggy wood.” 


IIeath is the most social of plants, and it has been said that if other plants 


214 ERICACEAL 


were to occupy the surface of the earth in the same proportion, there would 
not be room for more than five thousand species ; though now, as Humboldt 
observes, it is probable that the actual number of species exceeds that spoken 
of in the old myth of Zendavesta, which tells that the primeval creating 
Power called forth from the blood of the Sacred Bull 120,000 different forms 
of plants. 

The aspect of the Heath vegetation is remarkably striking, the Fine-leaved 
Heath and Ling being the representatives in our land of the large family of 
Ericacee, so numerous in southern regions, that in South Africa it quite 
determines the character of the vegetation. Immense tracts of land also in 
the north of Europe are quite covered with Heather, which often grows so 
close that no other plant can find room on the soil ; though on other parts it 
is somewhat less dense, and there bushes of juniper, andromeda, and ledum, 
take the place of our furze and broom, while immense quantities of bog moss 
and hair moss form a thick turfy carpet. It always grows on what is termed 
by agriculturists a sour soil, just such a soil as will admit of no culture, and 
this soil is abundant in Northern Europe. 

But the Heath family has in the northern hemisphere but few repre- 
sentatives ; the Cape of Good Hope may be called the country of the Heaths, 
though in the extreme south of Europe, and also in the Isle of Teneriffe, 
most beautiful arborescent species grow to a great height. Meyen says, that 
these have in their general effect a great resemblance to certain forms of a 
fir-tree tribe, their small needle-like leaves being, however, beautifully 
adorned by masses of elegant flowers, which are often of the most brilliant 
colours. Mr. Bunbury, in his “Report on his Botanical Travels in South 
Africa,” says, that the Hricacee of the Cape, which in their own country are 
not less beautiful than in our hot-houses, fall into three divisions, according 
to their locality. Some grow in company in great masses, like the European 
Heaths, and cover large spaces ; others, though very abundant, yet vegetate 
in a scattered manner among other plants; and, finally, there are species 
which are only found singly here and there in a cleft of the rock. He tells 
us that E. cerinthotdes has the widest area, and is even found eastward of 
Grahamstown. 

But we must return to our common Fine-leaved Purple Heath, which, 
however, may be found on rare occasions decked with bells white as snow, 
save where they are varied by the little black-tipped anthers. The cottagers 
whose dwellings are about the moors use it for many domestic purposes, 
and many a lowly home of worth and piety on Scottish moorland bids 
defiance to the bleak winds and storms by its well-woven thatch, made 
wholly of heather or of straw, bound down by a lattice-work of twigs. The 
cottage walls, too, are sometimes formed of alternate layers of heath and a 
cement made of black earth and straw—for black earth is always to be found 
where heather blooms, and where it has from time to time given its decayed 
remains as a manure to the soil. Many a hardy Highlander asks no softer 
couch than a strewing of heather ; and even little children learn to turn the 
plant to good account, by twisting it into a strong sort of rope. In many of 
the Western Islands yarn is dyed of a yellow colour by means of its young 
twigs and flowers ; and woollen cloth, first boiled in alum-water and then 


HEATH TRIBE 215 


immersed in this decoction, becomes of a bright golden yellow. The Heath, 
too, is very astringent, and is sometimes used in tanning leather. Leather 
is said to become sooner saturated with heath-tan than with that made of 
bark ; and in 1776 the discovery of its use was laid before the House of 
Commons in Ireland, and the account was ordered to be printed. 

Old traditions, still extant in Ireland, tell that the Danes made beer of 
the Heath, but Boethius relates this of the Picts. The historian says, that 
in the deserts and moors of the realm there grows a herb named Heather, 
which is very nutritive to beasts, birds, and especially to bees, and which in 
the month of June produces flowers as sweet as honey, and that of this the 
Picts made a delicious beer. The manner of making the heather beer 
perished with the extermination of the Picts, as they never showed it to any 
except to those of their own blood. Leyden adds, that the traditions of 
Teviotdale say, that when the Picts were exterminated, a father and son 
alone remained after the slaughter, and that being brought before Kenneth 
the Conqueror, life was offered to the father on condition of his revealing the 
secret of making this liquor ; and the son was put to death before his eyes in 
order to induce the old man to consent. This very exercise of cruelty, 
however, determined him more resolutely to keep the secret from the 
conqueror, and he said, ‘‘ Your threats might have influenced my son, but 
they have no effect on me.” The king then suffered the Pict to live, and the 
secret remained untold. 

A recent writer, referring to this, says, “It is just possible that the grain 
of truth contained in this tradition may be, that all the northern nations, as 
the Swedes still do, used the narcotic gale (Myrica galé), which grows among 
the Heather, to give bitterness and strength to their barley beer; and hence 
the ignorant believe that the beer was made chiefly of the Heather itself. 
While we write, a newspaper paragraph has come under our eye, which 
states that a ‘Mr. Harper, of Galway, shows to his visitors a large amount of 
bottled beer, manufactured by a metropolitan house from wild Heath.’ We 
should put more faith in this paragraph if the author or brewer would be 
good enough to substitute the word ‘flavoured’ for ‘manufactured.’ A liquid, 
called heather beer, was commonly made in the Highlands some years since, 
and as the verse says— 


‘Sir Geoffrey the bold of the cup laid hold 
With heath-ale mantling high.’” 


A Highland friend of the author assures her that in summer-time his 
father, a Scottish clergyman, commonly brewed a liquid so called, and of 
which the ingredients were gathered from a neighbouring moor. As this 
gentleman, however, cannot remember the exact mode of making it, it is not 
improbable that the bitter and narcotic bog-myrtle may have entered into 
its composition. He says of this beer, that it was very pleasant in flavour, 
brisk and sparkling, but that unless drunk almost immediately after the 
brewing it became very sour. 

Our red or purple Heather is indeed a boon to bees, but some persons say 
that honey made from it is narcotic—it is certainly of a dark hue. The 
enormous number of blossoms to the square yard of heath plants furnishes 


216 ERICACEAL 


an unfailing supply, and the bees work upon it in swarms throughout the 
hours of sunshine. Leyden, in his lines on the flower, refers to its use to the 
insect race :— 


‘The tiny heath-flowers now begin to blow, 
The russet moor assumes a richer glow, 
The powdery bells that gleam in purple bloom, 
Fling from their scented cups a sweet perfume ; 
While from their cells, still moist with morning dew, 
The wandering wild bee sips the honey’d glue, 
In wider circle makes the liquid hum, 
And far remote the mingled murmurs come. 


‘* When, panting, in his shepherd’s plaid involved, 
At noon the listless shepherd lies dissolved, 
‘Mid yellow crow-bells on the riv’let’s banks, 
Where knotted rushes twist in matted ranks, 
The breeze that trembles through the startling bent 
Sings in his pleaséd ear of sweet content. 


*¢ Sweet modest flower ! in lonely deserts dun, 
Retiring still from converse with the sun, 
Whose sweets invite the soaring lark to stoop, 
And for thy cells the humid dew-bell scoop ; 
Though unobtrusive all thy beauties shine, 
Yet boast thou rival of the purple vine ! 

For once thy mantling juice was seen to laugh 
In pearly cups which monarchs loved to quaff, 
And frequent wake the wild inspired lay 

On Teviot’s hills beneath the Pictish sway.” 


The Heath is the Heide of the Germans, and by the French the different 
species, with the Ling, are included in the name of bruyére. In Italy the 
plant is called Erica, and in Spain Brezo. The Scripture writers refer to the 
Heath: ‘“ And he shall be like the Heath in the desert,” was the comparison 
of the prophet Jeremiah. But the Heath is so rare a plant in Palestine that 
there is little doubt but that the juniper was intended. 


* * Corolla bell-shaped, or shortly tubular ; anthers protruded. 


5. Cornish Heath (Z. vdgans).—Leaves 3 or 4 in a whorl, crowded, 
very narrow, smooth ; flowers bell-shaped, shorter than the stamens, forming 
a leafy regular tapering cluster; anthers without awns; perennial. 
This plant, which is well distinguished when in flower by its truly bell- 
shaped corolla, is very abundant on heaths in the west of Cornwall. The 
Rev. C. A. Johns says of it:—‘ The stems are much branched, and in the 
upper parts very leafy, and from two to four feet high. The flowers 
are light purple, rose-coloured, or pure white. In the purple variety the 
anthers are dark purple ; in the white, bright red; and in all cases they 
form a ring outside the corolla until they have shed their pollen, when they 
droop to the sides. On the Goonhilley Downs in Cornwall, all these 
varieties of the Heath grow together in the greatest profusion, covering 
many hundreds of acres, and almost excluding the two species so common 
elsewhere.” It flowers from July to September. The stamens in this and 
the next species are not arranged with the anthers pressed against the style ; 
in consequence they are not awned, the more open, bell-shaped corolla 
making the mechanism of the bottle-shaped species less useful. The two 
anthers of each stamen are quite distinct, being mounted on short branches 


HEATH TRIBE 217 


of the filament ; they open by a large orifice at the end, and so resemble 
scoops. 

6. Mediterranean or Irish Heath (£. mediterrdnea).—Leaves 4 in 
a whorl, linear, smooth, flat above, convex, with a central furrow below ; 
corolla cup-shaped, twice as long as the calyx; anthers without awns ; 
{lowers in leafy racemes; bracts above the middle of the flower-stalk ; 
perennial. This plant, which is common in our gardens, and which there 
grows slowly to a large size, has, even when wild, a stem from two to five 
feet high, with many upright rigid branches; these terminate in flesh- 
coloured flowers about twice as long as the calyxes, the latter are also 
coloured. It is found on mountain bogs in the west of Mayo and Galway, 
Ireland, and on a few other spots in this kingdom. The plants which we 
have in the garden were introduced here from Spain long before it was 
known to be a native of this kingdom. 


2. Line (Callina). 


Common Ling, or Heather (C. vulgdris).—Leaves small, more or less 
downy (in one variety hoary), arranged in 4 rows on opposite sides of the 
stem and branches, each leaf having 2 small spurs at the base; corolla 
small, bell-shaped, shortly-stalked, drooping, nearly sessile ; perennial. This 
plant, which is very abundant on heaths and moors, is a small shrub, with 
tiny bright-green leaves, and its little flowers of a rich purplish-lilac are very 
numerous and beautiful in July and August. The flowers remain on the 
plant long after the seed has ripened, and will preserve their colour not 
alone on its rigid branches, but long after being gathered, often forming a 
bouquet for the winter mantelpiece. It is an exceedingly beautiful plant, 
varying from a slightly downy condition to an absolute hoariness of foliage, 
and occasionally bearing white blossoms. It is not often that the foliage is 
white with down, but Mr. George Luxford relates that, on one occasion, 
when visiting Mosely Common soon after dawn, his attention was arrested by 
the appearance of water at a spot where on a previous visit he knew that he 
had not seen any. On arriving at the place, he found that this appearance 
was occasioned by the reflection of the rays of the morning sun on a very 
heavy dew lying on the hoary Ling which at that place quite covered some 
gently-sloping ground. ‘“ Calliina vulgaris, in all its states,” says this botanist, 
“is a very elegant plant. The red and the white-flowered varieties, with © 
their smooth, deep green, closely imbricated leaves, are pretty and delicate ; 
the hoary one is very beautiful, although not possessing the exquisite silvery 
appearance of the stems and under side of the leaves of the lady’s mantle 
and hoary cinquefoil ; but of all the varieties the pre-eminently lovely one 
is that with double red flowers. This variety is found wild in Cornwall ; a 
specimen in my herbarium has its branches covered for nearly its whole 
length with the crowded flowers, and sweeter resemblances of wreaths of 
roses cannot be conceived.” The Ling is always one of the most ornamental 
plants in our British herbarium ; we scarcely know of any other which so 
well preserves the tint both of its flowers and foliage for many years. 

The Ling grows in abundance on barren Alpine moors, where scarcely 
any other plant is to be found. It occurs in every part of Europe, and is 

11.—28 


218 ERICACEAi 


extremely profuse in the northern countries. Linnzus mentions, in his 
“Flora Lapponica,” that in some districts through which he travelled scarcely 
any plant was seen save the Heather, which so covered the ground as to 
render its extirpation impossible. The country people had, he says, an idea 
that there were two plants which would finally overrun and destroy all the 
earth: these were Heather and tobacco. 

The caterpillar of the great egger moth (Lombyx quercus) feeds on the 
foliage of the Ling, and the branches afford shelter to grouse and other 
birds of the moorland, while they, as well as the birds of song, find many a 
meal in the seeds, which, well secured in their little seed-vessels, remain long 
on the plant. Sheep and goats sometimes browse on the Heath and Ling, 
and the latter is commonly made into brooms. It is said that several High- 
land lairds derive no small proportion of their revenues from the Heather, 
which is sold throughout the kingdom when made up into these domestic 
implements. The turf with the heath growing upon it is often cut up and 
dried for the winter fuel of the cottager, or is pulled up for heating ovens, 
and for immediate use. Robert Nicholls, who in early days was wont to 
pull the Ling to add to the comforts of the Scottish home, thus records the 
simple pleasure of the Heather-gathering :— 


‘*T like to pu’ the Heather, ‘*T like to pu’ the Heather 
We're aye sae mirthful, where Where harmless lambkins run. 
The sunshine creeps atour the crags Or lay them down beside the burn 
Like ravell’d golden hair : Like gowans in the sun ; 
Where on the hill tap we can stand Where ilka foot can tread upon 
Wi joyful heart I trow, The Heath-flower wet wi’ dew, 
And mark ilk grassy bank and holm When comes the starmie o’er the hill 
As we the Heather pw’. While we the Heather pu’.” 


3. MENZIESIA (Menziésia). 


1. Scottish Menziesia (M. cerilea).—Leaves numerous, scattered, 
linear, minutely toothed ; flower-stalks covered with glandular hairs ; flowers 
5-cleft, and with 10 stamens, forming terminal tufts; perennial. This is a 
small branched shrub, naked below, but very leafy above, and bearing, in 
June and July, large beautiful cup-shaped flowers of pale purplish-blue. It 
is common in North America, but rare in this kingdom, having been found 
on the Sow of Athol, in Perthshire, whence it is said to have been almost 
extirpated. By some authors this species is placed in the small genus 
Phyllodoce. 

2. Irish Menziesia, or St. Dabeoc’s Heath (IV. polifélia).—Leaves 
egg-shaped, with the margins rolled back, white and downy beneath ; corolla 
4-cleft ; stamens 8; perennial. This shrub bears, in July and August, 
terminal leafy one-sided clusters of most beautiful large flowers, usually of a 
purple colour, but sometimes of wax-like whiteness, which hang drooping on 
short stalks. The bushy stems are about one or two feet long, and become 
prostrate after a time. It grows, though rarely, on some mountainous heaths 
of Ireland, and is abundant in Connemara. This species constitutes the 
genus Dabeocia of D. Don, under which name some writers describe it. 


l SCOTTISH MENZIESTA 


4. MARSH ANDROMEDA 
Menziesia cerulea 
IRISH. M 
M. polifolia 
3 TRAILING AZALEA 


Andromeda polifolia 
AUSTERE STRAWBERRY TREE 
Arbutus unedo 
6 BLACK BEAR-BERRY 
Azalea procumbens Arctostaphylos alprna 
7 RED BEAR-BERRY 


Avuva “urs 


Pl, 138, 


pe 


HEATH TRIBE 219 


4. AZALEA (4zdleq). 


Trailing Azalea (4. prociimbens).—Stems woody, prostrate and tangled ; 
leaves leathery and evergreen, small, smooth, and rigid, with the margins 
remarkably rolled back ; flowers in short terminal tufts or clusters of 2 or 3; 
perennial. This, which is a plant of dry moory places, has little beauty 
which can compare with the showy Azaleas of our gardens and greenhouses. 
Its little clustered flowers, which appear in May and June, have red sepals 
and pink corollas, and its stiff leaves are dark green. It eccurs, so far as 
these islands are concerned, only in the Highlands from Ben Lomond to 
Shetland, the altitude of its stations ranging from 1,500 to 3,600 feet. But 
China is the land in which the Azaleas are to be seen to perfection. 
Mr. Fortune says: “Most people have seen and admired the beautiful 
Azaleas which are brought to the Chiswick fétes, and which, as individual 
specimens, surpass in most instances those which grow and bloom on their 
native hills ; but few can form any idea of the gorgeous and striking beauty 
of these Azalea-clad mountains, where, on every side as far as our vision 
extends, the eye rests on masses of flowers of dazzling brightness and sur- 
passing beauty. Nor is it the Azalea alone which wins our admiration ; 
clematis, wild-roses, honeysuckles, the glycine, and a hundred others mingle 
their flowers with them, and make us confess that China is indeed the 
‘central flowery land.’” One of the species, 4. péntica, has acquired a great 
celebrity from having been believed to be the Agolethron of the ancients. 
The disease which afflicted the army of Xenophon, in the celebrated retreat 
of the Ten Thousand, was supposed to have been caused by the honey made 
from the flowers of this plant. They exude a sweet juice, which is said to 
have intoxicating properties, and the honey gathered on the shores of the 
Euxine or Black Sea is at the present time believed to be deleterious from 
the same cause. Desvaux separated this plant from the Azaleas, and of it 
constituted the monotypic genus Loiselewria, which is retained by some 
authorities. 


5, ANDROMEDA (Andrémeda). 


Marsh Andromeda (A. jolifélia).—Stem woody, prostrate below ; 
leaves leathery, narrow lance-shaped, pointed, their margins rolled, glaucous 
below ; flowers drooping, in terminal tufts; perennial. This plant, which - 
grows in peaty bogs in Wales, Somerset, Norfolk, the North of England, 
and in Scotland, has several local names. It is called Wild Rosemary, Poly- 
mountain, Moon-wort, and Marsh Holy-rose. Linnzeus, who had a fanciful 
imagination, gave it its name of Andromeda, because the plants of this 
genus grow on Alpine bogs and sea-marshes, and being thus, as he deemed, 
chained to rocks and dreary places, and surrounded by monsters of the deep 
resembled the fabled Andromeda of ancient poetry. The drooping flowers, 
which appear from May to September, are pale purplish, and pitcher-shaped. 
The stamens, which are entirely within the corolla, have bearded filaments, 
and the anthers are awned. The plant is more frequent in the north of 
Europe than in these islands, and is common in Sweden, Denmark, Switzer- 
land, and Germany, as well as on the bogs of North America. A decoction 

28-—2 


220 ERICACEA 


of this plant is said by Gmelin to be very intoxicating, and to be used in 
Siberia as an inebriating liquor. The plant is also very acrid, and sometimes 
proves fatal to sheep. Another species, which grows in the United States, 
A. maridna, is so commonly injurious to these animals, that it has acquired 
the popular name of Stagger-lamb, or Stagger-bush, because it produces a 
disease in which they are seized with fits of trembling ; while the 4. ovifolia 
is said to cause the death of young goats which browse upon its shoots. Our 
Marsh Andromeda contains some quantity of tannin, and has been used 
instead of nut-galls. In Lapland large tracts of land are covered as with a 
moss by the 4. hypnoides ; and both in the north of Europe and America 
several species are used medicinally. The tree Andromeda, found in the 
valleys of the Alleghany Mountains, is called Sorrel-tree, from its acid leaves, 
which are used by the hunters to allay their thirst, and from which a slightly 
acid drink is procured to relieve the thirst in ardent fevers. Sir J. D. 
Hooker found the 4. fastigiata in such abundance on the mountains of Nepal, 
that he terms it the Himalayan heather. He says it makes good fuel. 


6. STRAWBERRY-TREE (Arbutus). 


Austere Strawberry-tree (4. wnedo).—Stem woody ; leaves elliptical, 
tapering, serrated, smooth; flowers in drooping panicles; fruit rough. No 
one who has ever visited the Lakes of Killarney can have failed to observe 
how much their beauty is enriched and varied by the large dark masses of 
Arbutus which grow about their shores. Were the traveller, indeed, suffi- 
ciently unobservant to pass them without remark, the boatmen would most 
surely call his attention to their loveliness ; nor would the visitor fail to be 
invited to the purchase of some little box, or set of chess-men, or bracelet, 
made of the beautifully-veined wood of this handsome tree. Mrs. 8. C. Hall 
remarks: “The tourist on approaching the Lakes is at once struck by the 
singularity and the variety of the foliage in the woods that clothe the hills 
by which, on all sides, they are surrounded. ‘The effect produced is novel, 
striking, and beautiful, and is caused chiefly by the abundant mixture of the 
tree-shrub, Arbutus unedo, with the forest trees. The Arbutus grows in nearly 
all parts of Ireland, but nowhere is found of so large a size, or in such rich 
luxuriance, as at Killarney. The extreme western position, the mild and 
humid atmosphere—for in Ireland there is fact as well as fancy in the poet’s 
image— . 
‘*Thy suns with doubtful gleam 

Weep while they rise,” 
and the rarity of frosts, contribute to its propagation, and nurture it to an 
enormous growth, far surpassing that which it attains in any part of Great 
Britain, although, even at Killarney, it is never of so great a size as it is 
found clothing the sides of Mount Athos. In Dinis Island there is a tree 
the stem of which is seven feet in circumference, and its height is in propor- 
tion, being equal to that of an ash-tree of the same girth, which stands near 
it. There are several others nearly as large, and we believe one or two 
larger. Alone, its character is not picturesque ; the branches are bare, long, 
gnarled, and crooked, presenting in its wild state a remarkable contrast to its 
trim-formed and bush-like figure in our cultivated gardens. Mingled with 


HEATH TRIBE 221 


other trees, however, it is exceedingly beautiful, its bright green leaves 
happily mixing with the light or dark drapery of its neighbours—the elm 
and the ash, or the holly and the yew, with which it is almost invariably 
intermixed. It strikes its roots apparently into the very rocks, thus filling 
up spaces that would otherwise be barren spots in the scenery. Its beautiful 
berries, when arrived at maturity, are no doubt conveyed by the birds who 
feed upon them to the heights of inaccessible mountains, where they readily 
vegetate in situations almost destitute of soil.” 

The Arbutus is said to have been introduced to the shores of the Lakes 
by the monks of Muckross Abbey, but most of our botanists consider that it 
is truly wild on that spot, though probably not so in other parts of Ireland. 
It is a native of the mountainous regions of Southern Europe, as well as of 
Northern Africa, and of many parts of Asia. The ancient poets often alluded 
to the tree: thus, Horace says— 


‘* Now stretch’d beneath the Arbutus’ green shade ;” 


and Virgil’s direction is familiar to the classic reader— 
“With leafy Arbutus your goats supply.” 


The tree during September and October bears very pretty greenish-white, 
wax-like bells, while the large red fruits of the last year are at the same time 
on the bough, and only now attaining their rich red ripeness. Bishop Mant 
refers to its autumnal beauty :— 

‘*Go where the mountain bugle wakes 
The echoes of Killarney’s lakes, 
And Glena’s waving crags incline 
O’er sainted Mucruss’ Abbey shrine, 
The Arbute opes its pensile bells : 
All beautiful itself, it tells, 

In concert with the fading woods, 

Of winds and equinoctial floods, 

Which soon their gather’d rage shall pour ; 
And beauty on that distant shore 
Forsaken, left to bloom alone, 

Unnoticed on her desert throne.” 


We need hardly describe the dark orange-red fruit, covered with hard 
tubercles formed by the seeds, and as large as a cherry, to whose resemblance 
to the strawberry the plant owes one of its familiar names, though it is more * 
often called Arbutus. This word is traced to the Celtic 4r-boise (Austere 
Bush), because of the harshness of the fruit; and we find traces of this word 
in the names by which the shrub is known in several of the continental 
countries. The French call it Arbousier ; and it is the Arbutus of the Dutch, 
and the Arbuto of the Italians. The Spaniards call this evergreen Madrona, 
and the Germans Landbeere ; and in Constantinople it is termed Komaria. 
It is rather amusing to find the plant called by our old writers Cain-apple, 
perhaps because the colour reminded them of the blood shed by the first 
murderer. Pliny says that the name Unedo (One I eat) was given because 
the fruit was not sufficiently good to tempt the taster to try a second. 
Parkinson remarks of this plant: “ Amatus Lusitanius, I thinke, is the first 
that ever recorded that the water distilled of the leaves and flowers thereof 


222 ERICACEAA—_HEATH TRIBE 


should be very powerful agaynst the Plague and poysons ; for all the ancient 
writers doe report that the fruit hereof, being eaten, is an enemy to the 
stomacke and head. And Clusius likewise setteth downe that at Lishbone, 
and other places in Portingall, where they are frequent, they are chiefly eaten 
of the poorer sorte, women and boys.” In the neighbourhood of Killarney 
the berries are commonly gathered, and offered in baskets for sale. They 
are, when fully ripe, perfectly wholesome, although their somewhat astringent 
properties would render it undesirable to eat very large numbers of them at 
one time, and in a half-ripened state they are very injurious. The flavour is 
to many people very pleasant, and in the warmer climates of the south is 
probably better than in this. In the markets of the south of Europe Arbutus 
berries are commonly exposed for sale ; and the tree is abundant and beautiful 
in Italy, though it is not even there so luxuriant as on the limestone rocks of 
Killarney. 

The rich green glossy leaves of this tree have been used by tanners in the 
preparation of leather ; and sugar, wine, vinegar, and a spirituous liquor, 
have also been procured from the berries. In Corsica, for instance, the 
berries are converted into a wine, of which it is said, but not by way of 
recommendation, that it retains the properties of the fruit. Some of the 
exotic species of Arbutus are larger and handsomer than the common 
kind ; and Baron Humboldt mentions one (4. petioldris), the leaves of which 
are infested by the caterpillars of a moth which afford a silk, used in Mexico 
in various manufactures. 


7. BEAR-BERRY (Arctostaphylos). 


1. Black Bear-berry (A. alpina).—Stem prostrate ; leaves wrinkled, 
serrated, inversely egg-shaped, netted with veins; flowers in terminal 
racemes ; perennial, This plant, which is only found on the dry barren spots 
of many of the Highland mountains from Forfar and Perth to Shetland, 
has a long, woody, trailing stem. The flowers, which appear in May, 
are pitcher-shaped, white, and tinged with a flush of delicate rose-colour. In 
autumn the foliage is of a beautiful rich red hue, and the berries black ; the 
leaves remain through the winter. 

2. Red Bear-berry (A. wva-wrst).—Stems prostrate ; leaves inversely 
ego-shaped, entire; clusters terminal; perennial. This is an abundant 
plant on the mountainous heaths of the north. It is a small evergreen 
shrub, with tough woody stems and rigid glossy leaves, having rolled 
margins. The flowers, which expand in May and June, grow in crowded 
clusters, and are of a bright rose-colour ; and the berries which succeed them 
are small and round, of a bright scarlet colour. They are mealy, and too 
dry and austere to be very pleasant, but are eaten by children with relish, 
and form the common food of the moor-fowl on the rocky heathy places 
where they abound. Dr. G. Johnston tells us that in Berwickshire these 
fruits are called Rapperdandies. They are used medicinally by the High- 
landers, and their value as an astringent has been confirmed by the testi- 
mony of medical practitioners ; they are also sometimes gathered for the 
purpose of tanning. 


MONOTROPEA—BIRD’S-NEST TRIBE 223 


Order 1:5. MONOTROPEE—BIRD’S-NEST TRIBE. 


Sepals 2—6, not falling off ; corolla regular, deeply divided into as many 
lobes or petals as there are sepals ; stamens twice as many as the lobes of the 
corolla ; anthers opening by pores; ovary 4—5-celled, sometimes imperfectly 
so; style 1, often bent; stigma usually lobed; fruit a dry capsule; seeds 
chaffy, numerous. This order contains but three British genera, and no 
plants of any economical importance, though the Pyrolas are very pretty 
and fragrant flowers. ‘The leaves are simple, smooth, veined, and often ever- 
green. 

1. MonESES (Monéses).—Petals slightly connected at the base ; filaments 
awl-shaped ; stigma 5-cleft ; margins of the valves of the capsule without any 
web. Name from monos, one, or alone, from the solitary flowers and combined 
petals. 

2. WINTER-GREEN (P#rola).—Petals 5, distinct ; filaments awl-shaped ; 
stigma 5-lobed; margins of the valves of the capsule connected by a web. 
Name from Pyrus, a pear, from a fancied similarity between its flowers and 
the pear blossom. 

3. Brrp’s-NEST (Mondtropa).—Sepals 4—5 ; petals 4—5, swollen at the 
base ; stamens 8—10; anthers 1-celled ; stigma flat, not lobed. Name from 
the Greek monos, one, and trepo, to turn, because the flowers all turn one 
way. 

1. MONESES (Monéses). 


Large-flowered Moneses (lV. grandifléra).—Leaves nearly round ; 
flowers solitary, drooping ; perennial. This plant, which is also known as 
Pyrola uniflora, is a very lovely though rare ornament of the mountainous 
pine-woods of Scotland. It is a very singular plant, with scarcely any stem, 
bearing several roundish, stalked, and slightly serrated leaves, which are 
smooth and veiny ; and having a single flower-stalk, from three to six inches 
high, which in July has a large, nearly white, sweetly-scented blossom, which, 
as Sir J. E. Smith observes, is one of the most curious and elegant of British 
flowers. Dr. E. D. Clarke remarks of it, when in Denmark: ‘“ Among the 
woods of Hunneberg, and beneath the shade of fir-trees, we found that 
beautiful plant, the Pyrola wniflora, rearing its pale, pendent, and solitary 
blossom near to the base of the mountain. As it was the first time any of , 
us had seen this plant, and as it afforded the first specimen for our botanical 
collection, the sight of it was a gratification to all of us. The flowers were 
snow-white, and they had the fragrance of the lily of the valley.” Although 
this species of Joneses has been found in the south of France and the north 
of Italy, it is so truly an inhabitant of alpine regions, that it was never 
observed in Britain until the year 1783, when it was noticed for the first 
time in Moray, and in the remotest isles of the Hebrides. Before it expands 
its cups, the blossoms are of a globular form; and it always hangs its head 
like a snowdrop. 

2. WINTER-GREEN (Pyrola). 


1. Round-leaved Winter-green (P. rotundifiélia). — Leaves nearly 
round, entire, or with the margins slightly notched ; flowers in racemes ; 


224 MONOTROPEAA 


style bent down, and curved upwards at the end, much longer than the 
ascending stamens; perennial. In the variety arenaria, which has smaller 
leaves, the flower-stalk has scaly bracts throughout its whole length, whilst 
in the typical forms these bracts are few in number. The species of 
Winter-green are often very difficult of discrimination, but this, which has 
far larger flowers than the others, is also marked by the length of its style, 
which exceeds that of the stamens and petals. This and the next species 
have the style ornamented by a ring below the stigma-lobes. The blossoms, 
which expand from July to September, are rather numerous, white, and 
spreading. At Guernsey this plant grows near the sea, among the reeds and 
damp woods; and bushy places and reedy marshes are the places of its 
growth; but it is very rare in this country. The plant has slightly astringent 
properties, and some other species of the genus, as P. wmbellata, afford an 
excellent tonic medicine. ‘These plants share with the pretty little 7rientdlis 
the name of Winter-green, and this has its synonym in various European 
countries. The French call the plant Pyrole; the Germans, WVinter-griin ; 
the Dutch, Winter-groen ; the Spaniards and Italians term it Pirola. It is the 
Vintergrin of the Danes, and the Gruscha dikaja of the Russians. 

2. Intermediate Winter-green (P. média).—Leaves nearly round, or 
roundish oval, with slightly rounded notches; flowers in racemes ; stamens 
erect, shorter than the straight style, which protrudes a little beyond the 
flower. The flowers, which expand in July and August, are numerous, and 
either of snowy-white hue or delicately tinged with rose-colour. They are 
neither so large as those of the round-leaved species, nor so fully expanded. 
The plant occurs in woods in the north of this kingdom, as at Keswick in 
Cumberland, and in some of the woods of Northumberland and York; but 
it is not a frequent flower in England, and not general in Scotland, though 
perhaps less rare than either of the other species. 

3. Lesser Winter-green (P. minor).—Leaves roundish oval, notched at 
the margin; flowers in racemes ; stamens erect, as long as the very short, 
straight style which is included within the corolla; stigma large and 
rayed; perennial. This species is at once distinguished from the last by its 
short and included style, and it is altogether a smaller plant. The flowers 
never seem quite to expand ; they are on very short, partial stalks, numerous, 
and of pale rose-colour, appearing in June and July. The leaves, too, are 
numerous. It grows in woods and thickets, chiefly in the north of England 
and Scotland, and is a common plant in the Highlands. It is more generally 
distributed than either of the foregoing species. 

4, Serrated Winter-green (P. seciinda).—Leaves egg-shaped, serrated ; 
flowers racemed, all leaning one way ; stamens bending, and about as long 
as the long, straight, much protruded style; perennial. This species 
occurs, though rarely, in the north of England, in mossy woods, and is by 
no means unfrequent in the fir-woods of Scotland, especially in the High- 
lands. The greenish-white flowers are small and oblong, almost closed, and 
droop on their little stalk in July. The stems are straggling and branched, 
and the leaves numerous. Sir J. D. Hooker found a Pyrola in the 
fir-woods of the Himalaya, blossoming among potentillas and purple 
primroses. 


3 


LARGE 


EFLOWERED MONESES 


Moneses grandiflora 


SERRATED WINTER: GREEN 


Pyrola secunda 


ROUND-LEAVED.W G 


P. rotundifolia 


A 


6 


[INTERMEDIATE W. G 
Pmedia 
LESSER.W. G 
P minor 
YELLOW BIRDS-NEST 
Monotropa hy popithys 


BIRD’S-NEST TRIBE 22 


OU 


3. Brrp’s-NEST (Moidtropa). 


Yellow Bird’s-nest (I. hypépithys).—Flowers in drooping, or some- 
times erect racemes, in one form having the filaments, ovary, and style 
smooth, in another with these parts hairy; perennial. This plant, which 
is called also Fir-rape and Pine Bird’s-nest, is a very singular one. It is 
not common in any part of this kingdom, occurring only in some few dry 
fir and beech woods of England and Scotland. In Monk Wood, near Alton, 
it is, however, plentiful. It has a stout, erect, succulent stalk, without 
leaves or branches, but clothed with egg-shaped scaly bracts. This stalk is 
from six to nine inches high, and has, at its upper part, a cluster of droop- 
ing brownish-yellow flowers, which when seen at a little distance look as if 
withered, but which are very succulent, and finally turn quite black. The 
flowers have all eight stamens, except the terminal one, which has ten. They 
appear in June and July. This plant is also known as Hypopithys multiflora. 

The Bird’s-nest has long been considered parasitic on the roots of the fir, 
and it has much of the general aspect of a parasitic plant ; but it is now very 
generally believed that it is not a parasite, and Mr. Babington considers this 
circumstance as proved, and describes the plant, ‘not parasitical.” The 
Bird’s-nest is always found near the roots of fir or beech trees, upon whose 
fallen, decaying leaves it really subsists, taking nothing from the tree but 
what it has already discarded. Mr. Rylands published, a few years since, 
in the “ Phytologist,” the result of long and careful investigation of this 
subject, and has found that the fibres of the roots of Mondétropa possess the 
small openings called spongioles, and that they imbibe their food from the 
soil in precisely the same way as any other plants. The greater number of 
specimens of the plant, when taken recently from the soil, present masses of 
a fibrous substance, closely adhering to the small fibres and the roots of the 
plants near which they grow. This fibrous substance was believed to form 
portions of the root of Mondtropa, but Mr. Rylands, after examining it with 
the greatest care, was of opinion that in all cases it consisted of a byssoid 
fungus, which had been formed on the Monétropa, but that it had no organic 
connexion with this plant. ‘The species of fungus varied in different specimens 
of the Bird’s-nest, and were found to be hitherto undescribed. 

The word “parasite,” when used in reference to plants, is in popular 
language applied very freely, but the botanist regards as strictly parasitic - 
such plants only as grow on the living parts of other vegetables, and derive 
their nutriment wholly from them. Mosses, lichens, and some others which 
merely attach themselves to the surface of other vegetables, taking their 
food from the atmosphere, from rain and dew, and not from the plants on 
which they fix themselves, are termed false parasites, or epiphytes, though 
this term is now, in this country, chiefly used in reference to those orchideous 
plants which hang on trees, but are nourished by the atmosphere. Many 
plants familiarly called parasites, as the honeysuckle and bindweed, are of 
course mere climbers, demanding nothing of the plant around which they 
grow, save that support which the weak may ask of the strong. Of truly 
parasitic plants, some attack the external parts of other vegetables, and others 
insidiously introduce themselves to the internal portions, where they grow 

11.—29 


226 ILICINEA 


until they pierce through the skin, and place themselves so as to receive sun 
and air. The former are exclusively of the Fungus tribe, and are known by 
the common names of mildew, rust, brand, ete. ; and among the latter are 
such plants as the mistletoe and the tooth-wort. This kind of parasite is 
again classed into such as have green leaves, like the mistletoe, performing 
all the ordinary functions of leaves, and such as have scales of a brown or 
some other colour, but not green, in place of true leaves, these not having 
the ordinary function of leaves, or possessing the powers of respiration and 
assimilation only in a very low degree. The largest leafy parasite of our 
native flora is the mistletoe. The brown scaly parasites always attach 
themselves to the roots of plants, like the various kinds of broom-rape and 
the tooth-wort. One of the most remarkable characteristics of such plants 
is the absence of all green colour, although exposed to the brightest light. 
Thus, the broom-rapes grow on open heaths and sea-cliffs in the very broadest 
sunshine of summer, yet they have no tints save those of dull brown, or 
purple, and dingy yellow. 


Order LII. ILICINEAZ—HOLLY TRIBE. 


Sepals 3—6, imbricated when in bud; corolla 4—5-lobed, imbricated 
when in bud ; stamens inserted in the corolla, equalling its lobes in number, 
and alternate with them ; filaments erect ; anthers 2-celled, opening length- 
wise ; ovary fleshy, abrupt, 2—6-celled ; stigma lobed, nearly sessile ; fruit 
a berry, not bursting, inclosing 3—6 stony nuts, each containing a seed. 
This order consists of trees or shrubs with thick leathery evergreen leaves, 
and small axillary white or greenish flowers. The only European species is 
the common Holly, the leaves of which, like those of most of the plants of 
this order, possess astringent properties. 

Hotty (Jlex).—Calyx 4—5-cleft; corolla wheel-shaped, 4—5-cleft ; 
stamens 4; stigmas 4—5; berry round, containing 4 seeds, inclosed in a 
nut-like covering. Name applied by the Latins to some tree, though not to 
our Holly. 


HOo.ty (lex). 


Holly (1. aquifélium).—Leaves leathery, egg-shaped, acute, shining, 
waved, with spiny teeth; flower-stalks axillary, short, many-flowered ; 
flowers somewhat umbellate; fruit a globose drupe containing four bony, 
seeded stones. The beautiful dark glossy Holly is a great ornament to those 
of our woods in which it occurs in abundance, and attains a goodly size. It 
is, however, more commonly a large shrub than a tree, yet in the woods of 
Dumbartonshire there are Holly-trees more than thirty feet high ; and the 
Holly-trees of Needwood Forest, in Staffordshire, have long been renowned 
for size and beauty. In Bretagne, Holly-trees are often to be seen fifty feet 
in height ; and Bradley records that some of those at the Holly-walk, near 
Frensham, in Surrey, had attained the height of even sixty feet; while old 
Hollies, thirty or forty feet high, with very large trunks, are to be found in 
various parts of this country. In woods where this plant is plentiful, as in 
some of the southern counties of England, it gives a peculiar feature to the 


HOLLY TRIBE 227 


landscape in winter ; for at that season we have no native evergreen which 
is at all conspicuous, except this and the ivy, and the masses of dark verdure 
yielded by these plants contrast beautifully with the naked outlines of the 
branches of the wood, as well as with the light tender green of the budding 
trees of spring. Its prickly glossy leaves and tough wood render it an 
excellent plant for hedges, and when Dutch horticulture prevailed in this 
country, and a certain formality in landscape gardening was’ generally 
cherished, many portions of land were inclosed within Holly hedges. 
Except that it grows slowly, nothing can be better suited for a hedge than 
the impenetrable boughs of the Holly, lasting through centuries, looking 
bright at all seasons, and brightest at the darkest, unhurt by wind or 
weather, and strong enough to resist the sturdiest intruder. <A hedge of 
Holly will, in about twenty years, attain the height of sixteen feet. Evelyn’s 
Holly hedge at Say’s Court, which the Czar of Muscovy destroyed during 
his temporary residence there, had been a source of innocent delight to its 
owner. It was, says Evelyn, “beautiful at any time of the year, glittering 
with its armed and varnished leaves, the taller standards at ordinary dis- 
tances blushing with their natural coral.” Bishop Mant, with a heart ever 
alive to all that is beautiful in Nature, and a ready sympathy with all that 
is graceful in human feeling, thus refers to it :— 


** And such was once thy Holly wall, ‘* But more endear’d, 
Good Evelyn, thick, extended, tall. Good Evelyn, is thy honour’d name 
Thy hands disposed the seedlings fair, For true devotion’s fervent flame, 
They throve beneath thy fostering care ; From wild o’erheated fancies free, 
Four hundred feet in length they throve, Pure faith and duteous loyalty ; 
Thrice three they rose in height above, Who, when each tree of noblest kind 


Glittering with arm’d and varnish’d leaves, For sight, smell, taste, entranced thy mind, 
Secure ’gainst weather, beasts, and thieves: Did still their glorious Author bless ; 


Blushing with native coral red, Nor to His holy volumes less 
Refreshment and delight they shed Devoted in thy green retreat, 

About thy path ; and still diffuse And with His Church in union sweet, 
O’er thy mild page perennial hues. Held’st on thy lengthen’d pilgrimage, — 


The truly wise, the Christian sage.” 


Beautiful holly hedges yet remain, which might vie with this renowned 
one. At Tyningham, the seat of the Earl of Haddington, there is a holly 
hedge two thousand nine hundred and fifty-two yards in length, varying 
from ten to twenty-five feet high, with a base from nine to thirteen feet 
broad. 

Many a hardy Holly is scattered over lonely moorlands, such as Dart- 
moor, or some bleak Highland hill where human hand could never have 
planted it, though now sometimes it serves as a beacon to the mariner at sea, 
or to the traveller over pathless wilds. The Holly will thrive in places 
where the bleak winds would destroy every other tree. On the lofty cliffs 
near the old and renowned Castle of Dover, and in the grave-yard of the 
church where our fathers worshipped when the Gospel was first brought to 
Britain, there is now placed a Holly-tree. Long after the generation who 
planted it are laid beneath the sod, that tree, reared in memory of the Iron 
Duke, the hero of many battles, will probably survive in all its greenness, 
though on that bleak spot scarcely any other tree would outbrave the raving 
winds which come with the winter from land and sea. 


228 ILICINEAS 


The Holly grows in most of the countries of Middle and Southern Europe, 
as well as in some parts of Africa and Asia, but in few lands is it so large as 
in ours. Its timber is very firm and white, and well adapted for many 
purposes of art. It is often made into screens and work-boxes, which ladies 
adorn by their paintings ; and it is dyed black for ornamental cabinet work, 
and is little inferior to ebony in hardness and in the high polish of which it 
is susceptible. It is also stained of various colours for the Tunbridge ware 
manufactories, and blocks for the engraver are cut out of it, though for the 
latter purpose it is far inferior to box. 

The Holly will thrive on almost any soil, but the people of Italy believe 
that the plant when growing wild indicates the presence of alum in the 
earth ; and Evelyn said that coals might often be found where the Holly 
grows. The idea prevailing in Italy arose, as Beckman tells us, from John 
di Castro. He used alum in dyeing cloth, and having observed that the 
Holly grew plentifully in the alumine districts of Asia, was induced, when 
seeing much of the plant in the neighbourhood of Jolfa, to search there also 
for this salt. He was confirmed in the opinion that alum abounded in his 
native soil by finding that the earth had an astringent flavour. His discovery 
led to the first alum works in modern Europe, which were established at 
Jolfa by means of Pope Pius II., and it led also to the erroneous idea of the 
connexion between the alum and the growth of the Holly. 

The Holly was formerly called Holme, Hulver, or Hulfere. It is still 
used for whip-handles, and this use of its wood seems very ancient. An old 


writer says :— 
‘They their Holly whips have braced, 
And tough hazel goads have got : 


and far earlier we find Chaucer referring to this use :-— 


‘The bilder oke, and eke the hardie ashe, 
The box, pipetre, the Holme to whippes lash ; 
The sailing firre, the cypres deth to plaine.” 

It is probable that to its old use of decking churches it owes its name of 
Holly, which is a corruption of the name Holy-tree, by which the monks 
called it. Its abundant growth gave the name of Holme Chase to a part of 
Dartmoor, to Holmwood and Holmbury, near Dorking, and to the Holmes- 
dale Valley, also in Surrey. The plant is still called Holme in Devonshire. 
In Norfolk it is called Hulver, a name as old as Chaucer’s poems, and doubt- 
less much older :— 


‘This herbere was full of flowers gende, 

Into the which as I beholde ’gan, » 

Betwixt an Hulfere and a woodbende, 
As I was ware, I saw where lay a man.” 


Skinner suggests that this name is either from the English word hold, 
and the Anglo-Saxon feor, long—a plant that lasts long—or from “hold 
fair,” because it keeps its beauty all the year. The plant is in France called 
Le Houx, and is the Stechpalme of the Germans, the Agrifoglio of the Italians, 
and the Acebo of the Spaniards. The specific name aquifolimn signifies 
needle-leaved. The Persians have a fancy that the Holly-tree casts no 
shadow ; and they consider an infusion of its leaves as fitted to be applied 


] COMMON HOLLY 3 COMMON ASH 


Ilex aquifolium Fraximis excelsicr 
2 PRIVET A LESSER PERIWINKLE , 
Ligostrum vulgare Vinca mnor 


6 GREATER .P 


V. major 


Pl. 140, 


HOLLY TRIBE 929 


to several sacred purposes. They also sprinkle it on the face of a new-born 
infant. Pliny tells of many superstitions concerning this shrub ; he says, in 
the words of his translator, ‘‘ As touching the Holly or Hulver-tree, if it be 
planted about a house, whether it be within a citie or standing in the 
countrey, it serveth for a counter-charm, and keepeth away all ill spells and 
enchantments.” Among the other remarkable things connected with the 
plant, the Roman naturalist relates that its flowers would cause water to 
freeze, and that it repelled poison ; while, if a staff of its wood were thrown 
to any animal, even if it fell short of touching it, the animal would be so 
subdued by its influence that it would return and lie down by it. 

In our days the Holly has an associated interest, and is dear to us all as 
emblematic of the season of festive enjoyments, of household gatherings, and 
of the joyous thanksgivings of the sanctuary for the greatest of all gifts ever 
bestowed on fallen man. Many a young heart bounds with joy at the sight 
of its glistening berries, while the eyes of older persons are filled with tears 
as they recall the looks and voices of those who are gone, and who were 
wont to gather with them around the Christmas fire. Country people, 
indeed, commonly call the Holly-bough “Christmas,” from the season which 
it adorns. The custom of decking houses and churches with the plant is 
one of high antiquity. It seems most probable that it was derived from the 
practice of the Romans, who at that season sent boughs to their friends 
during the festival of the Saturnalia. In many cases, customs of this kind 
were gradually adopted by the early Christians, and connected with their 
own faith. Houses and temples were then decked with holly, and Christmas 
Eve was marked in the Calendar as “ Templa exornantur ”—“ Churches are 
decked” : 

‘¢ And there are they who on this social eve 
Its old observances with joy fulfil, 
Their simple hearts the loss of such would grieve, 
For childhood’s early memory keeps them still, 
Like lovely wild-flowers by a crystal rill, 
Fresh and unfading ; they may be antique, 
In towns disused ; but rural vale and hill, 


And those who live and die there, love to seek 
The blameless bliss they yield, for unto them they speak. 


** And therefore do they deck their walls with green ; 
There shines the Holly-bough with berries red ; 
There too the yule-log’s cheerful blaze is seen 
Around its genial warmth and light to shed ; 
Round it are happy faces, smiles that spread 
A feeling of enjoyment calm and pure, 
A sense of happiness home-born, home-bred, 
Whose influence shall unchangeably endure 
While Home for English hearts has pleasures to allure.” 


Sheep browse on the leaves of the Holly, and the deer and rabbit feed on 
them in winter. They abound in a glutinous substance, which is used in 
making bird-lime, and the bitter principle of both leaves and bark has been 
of service in intermittent fevers. Dr. Rousseau, of Paris, made very 
extensive experiments on the decoction of Holly, and discovered therein the 
existence of a hitherto unknown principle, called ilicine, which appears to 
be of more service in some cases than even Peruvian bark. Some species of 


230 ILICINEA.A—HOLLY TRIBE 


Ilex yield, in other countries, important medicines ; the Jlex vomitéria affords 
the celebrated Apalachian Tea of North America, which the Indians assemble 
to drink in large draughts medicinally. No less renowned is the J. para- 
guénsis, the Yerb maté, or Jesuit’s Tea, of Paraguay, which forms a favourite 
infusion, drunk at all times of the day by natives of Paraguay, La Plata, Peru, 
and Quito, and which is made, like our tea, by putting a handful of leaves into a 
teapot, and pouring boiling water upon them. The Creoles are so fond of 
this beverage that they never travel without some of the maté leaves. More 
than five millions of pounds of this tea are annually exported from Paraguay. 
The natives boast of the innumerable excellences which the tea possesses ; 
and it is certainly very remarkable that recent researches have proved the 
existence in this infusion of the Holly of the bitter tonic substance called by 
chemists theine, which renders the Chinese tea so refreshing, and which is 
identical with the caffeine of the coffee-berry. Liebig, referring to tea and 
coffee, says: “We shall certainly never be able to discover how men were 
led to the use of the hot infusion of the leaves of a certain shrub, or a 
decoction of certain roasted seeds. Some cause there must be to explain how 
the practice has become a necessary of life to whole nations. But it is surely 
still more remarkable that the beneficial effects of both plants on the health 
must be ascribed to one and the same substance, the presence of which in 
two vegetables belonging to different natural families, the produce of different 
quarters of the globe, could hardly have presented itself to the boldest 
imagination.” 

The flowers of the Holly are small, white, and thick like wax, growing 
in tufts in the axils of the leaves in May and June. ‘The leaves are alternate, 
deep green, shining, very rigid, the upper ones often without spines, the 
lower usually very spinous. The bark on the young branches is green, and 
on the older ones ash-coloured ; the berries are ripe in September, and hang 
on the bough nearly through the winter. The smooth gray bark of the 
Holly will often be found to be covered in places with raised black marks 
which very closely resemble Chinese writing. They are really the fruits of 
a species of lichen called Graphis elegans. 


Order LIII. OLEACE.—OLIVE TRIBE. 


Calyx 4-lobed, not falling off, sometimes wanting; corolla 4-cleft, or of 
4 free petals, sometimes wanting ; stamens 2, alternate with the lobes of the 
corolla; ovary 2-celled; cells 2-seeded ; style 1; fruit a berry, drupe or 
capsule of 2 cells, each cell often perfecting but a single seed. The order 
consists of trees or shrubs with opposite leaves, either simple or compound, 
and the flowers grow in clusters. They inhabit the temperate regions of 
most parts of the world. The most important plant is the Olive, so familiar 
to our minds as connected with some of the most interesting events of sacred 
history, and which was among the earliest plants to be cultivated. This tree 
grows freely in the south of Europe, and occasionally bears fruit in this 
country, but the produce is scanty and uncertain. Britain produces but two 
members of the tribe, each representing a separate genus. 

1. Prive (Ligistrum).—Calyx with 4 small teeth ; corolla, funnel-shaped, 


OLEACEA—OLIVE TRIBE 231 


4-cleft ; fruit a 2-celled berry. Named from ligo, to bind, from the use made 
of its twigs. 

2. AsH (Frdéainus).—Calyx 4-cleft or wanting ; corolla none, or of 4 petals 
joined at their base ; fruit a winged 2-celled samara. Name, the Latin name 
of the tree, alluding to the ease with which the timber splits. 


1. Priver (Ligistrum). 


Privet (L. vulgére).—Leaves narrow, elliptical, entire, smooth ; panicles 
terminal, compound, dense ; perennial. We have often thought, when looking 
at this shrub when in flower, that its old name of Prim, or Primprint, was 
very expressive of its neat and somewhat formal appearance. It, however, 
doubtless owed this to its having been one of the plants selected by the old 
gardeners for cutting into various forms, and which, therefore, wore to the 
eyes of our fathers an artificial formality. It is very common in our hedges, 
bearing even in winter numbers of dark, somewhat dull-green leaves, and 
bunches of black glossy berries as large as currants. But common as it is, 
we must not assume that it is always a native plant. Mr. Hewett C. Watson, 
who has made a profound study of the geographical distribution of plants, 
says that, except when growing upon sea-cliffs and in chalk districts, we must 
regard the Privet as naturalized only. In May and June its pyramidal 
clusters of white flowers are abundant, having a slight but somewhat 
unpleasant odour, and soon assuming a dull yellowish-brown hue. The Privet 
is one of the few shrubs which thrive under the shadow and drip of trees, 
and it is therefore often planted in shrubberies; while, from its bearing 
smoke without injury, it is commonly found in the gardens of London and 
other large towns. The flexible boughs are occasionally used, like osiers, for 
baskets and various rustic purposes. One of our old writers says of this 
plant :—“ Our common Privet is carried up with many slender branches to a 
reasonable height and breadth to cover arbours, bowers, and banqueting- 
houses, and wrought and cut into so many forms of even horses, birds, and 
other things, which though at first supported, groweth afterwards strong of 
itself.” The writer proceeds to relate how the Privet was praised for its 
medicinal virtues by Dioscorides and Galen, and says that Matthiolus con- 
siders that oil made of the flowers of the Privet, and set in the sun, is 
“singular good for the inflammation of wounds, and for the headache.” He 
adds that a distilled water was often made of the flowers. 

The berries are, in our days and country, the most useful part of the plant. 
They are perfectly innocuous, and many birds, especially partridges and bull- 
finches, will feed upon them; but, from the length of time which they 
remain on the tree, we must infer that as long as the fruits of the hawthorn, 
mountain ash, and other favourite berries are attainable, those of the Privet 
are neglected. They are sometimes mixed by dyers with the berries of the 
buckthorn, and a good pink as well as green dye may, by different modes of 
preparation, be procured from this plant. An oil, useful for various domestic 
purposes, is also expressed from the berries, and their juice enters into the 
pigment of the artist commonly called sap-green. Glove manufacturers use 
the fruit in giving the black colour to kid. A friend of the writer saw boys 
gathering them into baskets in large numbers for this purpose, both in 


232 OLEACEAL 


Gloucestershire and Somersetshire, where the shrub is very plentiful. The 
young twigs of this plant are used in Belgium and Silesia by tanners. 

The L. licidum of China yields a vegetable wax, used in that country for 
many purposes. The wood of our wild plant is fitted for the turner. The 
caterpillars of several moths feed on its foliage. One of these is so frequent 
that it has received the name of Privet hawk-moth. It is a large and hand- 
some insect, of a bright colour, striped with purple and white. 


2. ASH (Frdxinus). 


Common Ash (J. eacélsior).—Leaves large, pinnated; leaflets egge- 
shaped and lanceolate, pointed and serrated ; flowers without calyx or 
corolla. A form of the tree occurs in Devonshire with simple leaves, which 
is the /. heterophylla of some botanists. Long after many of the trees of 
our woodlands are in the full leaf of advanced spring, this noble tree with 
its ash-coloured bark is still without a spray of green, and its twin black 
buds stand in conspicuous array on the flattened twigs. Bishop Mant well 


describes them : 

*«Tts buds, on either side opposed 
In couples, each to each, enclosed 
In caskets black and hard as jet, 
The Ash-tree’s graceful branch beset ; 
The branch, which, clothed in modest grey 
Sweeps gracefully with easy sway, 
And still in after life preserves 
The bending of its infant curves.” 


When May comes round with its verdure and bloom, the Ash is well clothed 
with its masses of light sprays; and scarcely a forest tree is more beautiful, 
and few, save the poplar, send out their branches higher towards the sky. 
Virgil termed the Ash pulcherrima sylvis ; and well did Gilpin name it the 
Venus of the Forest, while he called the oak its Hercules, for the light and 
graceful form of the Ash stands in strong contrast to the sturdy gnarled oak. 
This writer, in his work on “Forest Scenery,” thus graphically describes the 
former tree: “Its branches at first keep close to the trunk, and form acute 
angles with it; but as these begin to lengthen they generally take an easy 
sweep, and the looseness of the leaves corresponding with the lightness of 
the spray, the whole forms an elegant depending foliage. Nothing can have 
a better effect than an old ash hanging from a corner of a wood, and bringing 
off the heaviness of the other foliage with its loose pendent branches.” 

The Ash rises freely from seed; and very pretty, in the months of May 
and June, is a plantation of Ash saplings, especially when varied with wood- 
land flowers growing around their roots. ‘The stems and branches of the 
young trees, about four or five feet high, have not yet wholly assumed that 
pale ash colour which gave the tree its familiar name ; but the upper portions 
are of a most beautiful purplish-brown hue, and are as smooth and glossy as 
silk. If the soil is good, the young saplings soon rise to a goodly size, and 
put forth their flowers, destitute of corolla and calyx. The Ash grows 
rapidly, and is well worthy of its old name, “the Husbandman’s Tree,” and 
is fitted to turn to good account for ladders, hop-poles, hurdles, and all sorts 
of agricultural implements. If some stream winds its way by an ash planta- 


OLIVE TRIBE 233 


tion, making the soil rich and moist, the Ash will soon overtop the oaks of 
many years’ growth, and will send forth its horizontal roots, whose branches 
will shortly become covered with fibres. In such a soil the roots will extend 
to a great distance, and form a kind of underground drain, so as to justify 
the old country proverb, ‘‘ May your footfall be by the root of an Ash.” In 
such a place the Ash will yield its foliage so luxuriantly, that the cattle will 
come in the heat of noon to lie beneath its shadow, and the rambler in the 
country in search of wild flowers may seat himself at its trunk to survey the 
landscape from the greenest and coolest of leafy retreats. 

But these roots of the Ash, so useful by the sides of streams and rivers 
in supporting the soil of the bank and carrying off the moisture, are very 
inconvenient on the borders of corn or meadow lands. They check most 
effectually the growth of the pasture plants, and their fibres prove a hindrance 
to plough and harrow; while neither corn nor grass will grow well beneath 
the shadowy screen or the moisture which, condensing on the leaves, falls in 
drops on the plants below. The woodland is the place most fitted for the 
Ash, and there we most frequently find it; but it will not grow so well near 
stagnant water. Cattle browse upon such of the branches as they can reach. 
The Romans prized Ash-leaves for fodder more than modern graziers do. In 
Lancashire, however, Ash-boughs are lopped off to serve in autumn as food 
for cattle ; and in Queen Elizabeth’s time the practice seems to have been 
carried on to a great extent in this country; for the inhabitants of Colten 
and Hawkshead Fells were highly indignant against the number of forges 
raised there, because, as they said, these consumed the boughs and leaves 
which they required for the winter food of their cattle. ‘The leaves are 
readily eaten by deer, and are said to be used with sloe-leaves in adulterating 
tea. ‘They are certainly less objectionable for this purpose than most of the 
ingredients so used, and Willich says that their tonic properties are superior 
to those of the Chinese leaf. In our country the leaves are very little in- 
fested by the insect race, frost and time being their two great enemies, 
leaving them fewer and more scattered; but on the Continent the foliage is 
much injured, and rendered of a most disagreeable odour, by the Spanish 
blister-beetle (Cantharis vesicatoria), which has, when living, an unpleasant 
scent, and which, dying on the tree, and leaving its remains to crumble to 
powder, is sometimes inhaled by those who sit beneath the boughs, and pro- 
duces most serious inflammatory results. On this account the Ash-tree is 
not in France planted near towns and villages ; but in England this beautiful 
beetle is too rare to prove an annoyance. The late coming and the early 
falling of its leaf is a slight disadvantage to the picturesque effect of the 
tree. 

The pendent winged seeds of the Ash are commonly termed keys, and in 
Kent are often called spinners, because they spin through the air in falling. 
The wings are not in pairs, like those of the maple, though like them they 
have a flattened appendage, which, by floating the seeds on the wind, becomes 
a great means of their dispersion. This wing has got a twist like that of 
the blade of a screw-propeller, and this helps the spinner to pass through the 
air with greater directness, and to reach the earth seed first. The old notion, 
that when these keys are abundant a severe winter will follow, is still retained 

11.—30 


234 OLEACEA—OLIVE TRIBE 


in country places ; though their repute for medicinal properties has probably 
quite passed away. An old writer affirms: ‘“’'The young tender tops with 
the leaves, taken inwardly, and some of them outwardly applied, are singular 
good against the biting of viper, adder, or any other venomous beast ; and 
the water distilled therefrom being taken, a small quantity every morning 
fasting, is a singular medicine for those that are subject to dropsy, or to 
abate the greatness of those that are too gross or fat.” A decoction of the 
leaves is still esteemed a good febrifuge. The keys were believed to have 
the same effects as the leaves. 

Both Pliny and Gerarde held that there is such an antipathy between the 
adder and the Ash-tree, that if an adder were encompassed by Ash-leaves it 
would refrain from biting. Evelyn says that in his day Ash-keys were pre- 
served with salt and vinegar, and sent to table as a sauce, and that being 
pickled they afforded a “delicate salading.” Branches of the Ash-tree are 
still sometimes hung about beds, to keep away gnats and other insects. The 
plant was in former years much connected with charms and other superstitious 
practices, most of which are happily disappearing before the increase of 
general knowledge and the wide dissemination of religious truth. More 
than one writer, however, of recent date, tells of some pollard Ash hollowed 
out by age which is even yet prized by neighbouring villagers as a “‘Shrew- 
ash.” White mentions one of these trees, which about his time stood in the 
village of Selborne. ‘At the corner side of the Plestor, or area near the 
church,” says this naturalist, “there stood about twenty years ago, a very 
old grotesque pollard Ash, which for ages had been looked upon with no 
small veneration as a Shrew-ash. Now, a Shrew-ash is an Ash whose twigs 
or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately 
relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse 
over the part affected ; for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baleful 
and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, 
cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and 
threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to 
which they were continually lable, our provident forefathers always kept a 
Shrew-ash at hand, which, once medicated, would maintain its virtues for 
ever.” A Shrew-ash, it seems, was made by boring a hole into the body of 
the tree, into which living tomb a poor little shrew-mouse was thrust, and 
securely plugged up, probably with magic ceremonies unknown to the men 
of our generation. Happily, no more Shrew-ashes can be made, since the 
needful incantations are no longer in existence. 

The bark of the Ash-tree is useful in tanning, and when burnt it yields 
a considerable quantity of potash. ‘The ancients had a great veneration for 
the Ash, and the heroes of Homer are represented as armed with the ashen 
spear. The Romans used its wood for warlike weapons and agricultural 
implements. In the sacred book of the Northmen, the Edda, it holds a very 
conspicuous place. 

This tree is mentioned once in Scripture, where the prophet Isaiah says, 
“He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which 
he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an 
Ash, and the rain doth nourish it.” The word rendered “ Ash ” by our trans- 


APOCYNEAI—PERIWINKLE TRIBE 235 


lators is, however, thought to refer to the pine-tree, and is so translated in 
the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate, and this opinion has been agreed 
to by Calvin, Bochart, and other learned critics. Our native Ash does not 
occur in Palestine, though the Ornus europea, or Manna Ash, is found there. 

The Ash does not grow to so large a size as some other of our forest 
trees, but Dr. Plot mentions a tree which was eight feet in diameter; and 
Arthur Young tells of one in Ireland which had reached the height of nearly 
eighty feet in thirty-five years. The great Ash at Woburn, which Mr. Strutt 
has figured in his “Sylva Britannica,” is larger and higher still. The height 
of this noble tree is ninety feet ; at the ground it is twenty-three and a half 
feet in circumference, twenty at one foot, and fifteen feet three inches at 
three feet from the ground. The diameter of its extended boughs is one 
hundred and thirteen feet, and it contains eight hundred and seventy-two 
feet of timber. 

The Ash is indigenous to the greater part of Europe, the north of Africa, 
and some parts of Asia. Professor Jameson, however, doubts if it is truly 
a native of Scotland, because, if it had formed part of the ancient forests, 
some traces of the tree would most likely be found in the peat-mosses ; yet 
in these neither Ash-seeds nor beech-mast are discovered, though in many 
peat-mosses hazel-nuts and fir-cones are to be found in abundance. The 
French call the Ash Le Fréne. It is the Esche of the Germans, the Frassino 
of the Italians; and both the Germanand English names are either from the 
Celtic aesc, pike, or from the greyish tint of the bark of the tree. 


Order LIV. APOCYNEA®—PERIWINKLE TRIBE. 


Calyx deeply 4—5-cleft, not falling off; corolla regular, 5-lobed, the lobes 
twisted when in bud ; stamens 4—5, inserted in the tube of the corolla; 
anthers 2-celled; pollen large; ovary 2-celled, or double; styles 2—1; 
stigma 1, contracted in the middle; fruit various. The order consists of 
trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants, with handsome flowers, remarkable for 
the twisted form of the corolla while in bud, whence Linnzus termed the 
order Contorte ; and also for the beautiful column-like pistil. Several of 
them have milky juices of an acrid and caustic property ; and some of the _ 
most powerful poisons, as the celebrated Tanghin poison of Madagascar, are 
produced by this order. The Oleander, so beautiful an ornament to our 
conservatories, has acrid and poisonous leaves and roots; and meat roasted 
on spits made of its boughs has proved fatal to those who ate it. 

PERIWINKLE (Vinca).—Corolla salver-shaped, with 5 angles at the mouth 
of the tube, 5-lobed, the lobes oblique ; fruit consisting of 2 erect horn-like 
capsules which do not burst. Name, from the Latin vincio, to bind. 


PERIWINKLE (Vinca). 


1. Lesser Periwinkle (VY. miénor).—Stem trailing, sending up short, 
erect, leafy shoots which chiefly bear the flowers; leaves oblong, their 
margins not fringed; perennial. Of the two species of Periwinkle found in 
our woods, this only can be considered as truly wild ; and even in this case 

30—2 


236 APOCYNE 


there are some doubts thrown upon the genuineness of its claim to be re- 
garded asa native. Except in England and Wales, it appears to have no real 
claim, and even in those countries Mr. Watson is of opinion that it was 
originally introduced by man, and has continued to hold its own against the 
aborigines. It seldom produces seed in this country, and that alone is a 
suspicious circumstance, though it has been explained as due to the plant’s 
habit of increase by rooting from the joints of its trailing stems. It is very 
ornamental to such spots as produce it plentifully, as in some woods in the 
west of England, where it covers a wide extent of ground with its bright 
glossy leaves. It has blue, and in some specimens white, flowers, which 
expand from March till June; and the interior of the flower is worthy of 
examination. The pistil expands gradually from a slender base to a broad 
cup, the stigma, more than half the width of the tube. Within the cup is a 
tuft of hairs which catch the pollen from the anthers. Around the edges of 
the cup, and coming almost in contact with it are the anthers on short fila- 
ments and with beards. The space left between the two organs is so slight 
that only insects with long, thin tongues can reach the two yellow honey- 
glands at the base of the style. Several species of humble-bees and certain 
flies do this, and as they press down their tongues these get smeared with 
adhesive matter from the stigma. When the tongue is withdrawn its sticki- 
ness picks up pollen from above the stigma, and with this the next flower is 
fertilized. The foliage of both this and the next species remains green through 
the winter ; hence the Germans call these plants Sinngriin. Its juice is acrid, 
and is so astringent that the plant has been used in tanning. 

2. Greater Periwinkle (V. mdjor).—Stem almost erect ; leaves egg- 
shaped, heart-shaped at the base, their margins fringed; segments of the 
calyx awl-shaped, and fringed; perennial. ‘This is a naturalized plant, often 
found in our woods, and on the margins of streams, though generally near 
enough to houses to give good reason for believing that it is the outcast of a 
garden. Its stem, which is much more erect than that of the lesser species, 
often ascends several feet high, and may be trained so as to twine a little 
way up pillars or around the walls of an arbour. Both leaves and blossoms 
are twice as large as those of the other plant, but the most distinct specific 
character is found in the fringed margins of the leaves and calyx of this 
species. The rich purplish-blue flowers expand in April, and continue in 
bloom throughout the summer they have a white rim at the base of the 
limb, and are, as Hurdis says— 


**Pentagonally formed, to mock the skill 
Of proud geometer.”’ 


The stems of both species are tough and are flexible enough to merit 
their scientific name from vincio, to bind. The origin of its familiar name is 
not so obvious as this. The Anglo-Saxons called the plant Peruince ; in the 
time of Chaucer it was called Pervenke ; the French still call it Pervenche, and 
the Italians and Spaniards, Pervinca ; though among the former people it is 
also commonly called Centocchio, or Hundred-eyes, while the Italian peasants, 
who twine it around the head of the departed infant or young maiden, call 
it Fior di Morto, Death’s-flower. ‘The Greeks termed the plant Daphnoides, 


PERIWINKLE TRIBE 237 


because of the laurel-like tint and texture of its glossy leaves. In Holland 
wreaths of the Periwinkle are commonly worn about the heads of young 
girls, and the plant is there called Maagdepalm. In France it has many 
country names, several of them significant of the connection of the plant 
with the practices of magic; such is its name of Violette des sorciers ; while 
its old French name of Pucellage connects it with the Virgin, and in most of 
the continental nations the flower is worn either in life or death by young 
maidens. 

In Poland the Periwinkle is commonly called Plicaria, because it has 
been considered successful in arresting or curing that dreadful disease, the 
Plica Polonica, in which the hair forms an entangled mass, which, if cut, is 
said to cause the death of the patient. The plant is decidedly astringent, 
though acrid, and our fathers valued its medicinal properties. Parkinson 
tells us that the leaves held in the mouth will stay the bleeding of the nose ; 
and the best of all our early naturalists, John Ray, recommends it not only 
as a remedy for toothache, but as fitted to fasten the teeth which are loose. 
Most of the old writers on plants praise its efficacy as a gargle to heal the 
diseased throat ; and Lord Bacon tells us that, in his days, bands of green 
Periwinkle were bound about the limbs to prevent cramp. Coles, who wrote 
in 1657, tells of a friend of his who was ‘“‘ vehemently tormented with the 
cramp for a long while, which could be by no means eased till he had wrapped 
some of the branches hereof about his limbs.” 

Few who look at the Periwinkle clumps, so common now in gardens and 
shrubberies, are aware that it is one of the oldest flowers of the English 
garden, and the rival of those earliest favourites, the stock-gillyflower and 
the rose. Chaucer, describing a garden in the olden time, says :— 

‘*There sprang the violet al newe, 
And fresh Pervincke riche of hewe, 
And flouris yelowe, white, and rede, 
Such plente grewe then in the mede ; 
Ful gaie was al the ground, and quaint. 
And poudred as men had it peint, 


With manie a freshe and sundrie floure, 
That castin up full good savoure.” 


And elsewhere we find this lover of birds and flowers saying :— 


“ There lacked not 
Ne not so muche as floure of brome, 
Ne violet, ne eke Pervinke, 
Ne floure none that men can thinke ; 
And manie a rose-lefe full long 
Was entermeddled there emong ; 
And also on his heade was set 
Of roses redde a chapilet.” 


Mr. Phillips, in his “Flora Historica,” describes the structure of the 
pistil of this flower; and this organ well deserves our attention, for it is 
here, as well as in the smaller species, most beautiful. ‘The style of this 
flower,” he remarks, ‘‘is of a full orange colour, bearing two distinct circular 
plates, the lower one of which is of a rich orange hue, and the top one white, 
which may be compared to a shilling placed on a guinea. On the top of 
the white plate there is a short green elevation which is crowncd with five 


238 GENTIANEA 


drooping feathery substances that form a rosette, whose purpose seems to be 
that of confining down the overhanging parts of the anthers, without entirely 
excluding the air, which can pass through the feathery nature of the crown.” 
These plants, propagating themselves freely by the root, seldom produce 
seed-vessels. Mr. Curtis says, that he has never seen a single seed, nor has 
the writer of these pages ever found one on the plants either of wood or 
garden. But Miller observed that the plant may be made to produce its 
seeds by cutting off all the lateral shoots. Tournefort, who examined the 
plant in Provence, Languedoc, and near Lisbon, in all which places it is very 
abundant, never saw it in fruit. 


Order LV. GENTIANEA—GENTIAN TRIBE. 


Calyx generally 5, sometimes 4 or 8-cleft, not falling off; corolla wheel- 
shaped, bell-shaped or funnel-shaped, with as many lobes as those of the 
calyx, not falling off, twisted when in bud, often fringed about the mouth of 
the tube ; stamens equalling in number the lobes of the corolla, and alternate 
with them ; ovary of 2 carpels, 1 or imperfectly 2-celled ; style 1; stigmas 2 : 
fruit a capsule or berry, many-seeded. This is a very extensive order, con- 
sisting chiefly of herbaceous plants, with opposite, usually sessile leaves, and 
with no stipules. Many of the flowers are very beautiful, and the plants of 
the order are remarkable for their bitter stomachic properties. They are 
distributed throughout all climates, several of them growing on mountains, 
near the regions of perpetual snow. 

1. GENTIAN (Gentidna),—Calyx 4—5-cleft ; corolla somewhat bell-shaped, 
or funnel- or salver-shaped ; stamens 5 ; styles often combined. Name from 
Gentius, an ancient king of Illyria, who discovered its medicinal properties. 

2. GENTIANELLA (Cicéndia).—Calyx 4-cleft ; corolla 4-cleft, funnel-shaped, 
the tube swelling ; stamens 4; anthers opening lengthwise ; capsule 1-celled, 
2-valved. Origin of name unknown. 

3. CENTUARY (Hrythréa).— Calyx 4—5-cleft ; corolla funnel-shaped, 
4—5-cleft, not falling off ; stamens 4—5 ; anthers becoming spirally twisted ; 
stigmas 2; capsule nearly cylindrical, imperfectly 2-celled. Name from the 
Greek erythros, red, from the colour of the flowers. 

4, YELLOW-worT (Chldéra).—Calyx deeply 6—8-cleft ; corolla with a very 
short tube, 6—8-cleft ; stamens 6—8; stigma 2—4-cleft. Name from the 
Greek chloros, yellow, from the colour of the flowers. 

5. Buck-BEAN (Menydnthes).—Calyx deeply 5-cleft ; corolla funnel-shaped, 
with 5 lobes, fringed all over the inner surface ; stamens 5; stigma 2-lobed. 
Name of doubtful origin. 

6. VittArstA.—Calyx deeply 5-cleft ; corolla wheel-shaped, with 58 
lobes, which are fringed only at the base; stamens 5—8; stigma with 
2 toothed lobes. Name in honour of M. de Villars, a French botanist. 


1, GENTIAN (Gentidna). 
1. Marsh Gentian ((¢. pnewmondnthe).—Leaves linear, blunt; flowers 
terminal and axillary, nearly sessile ; corolla 5-cleft ; perennial. This plant 
is known, when in flower, from all the other Gentians by the fine broad, 


] MARSH GENTIAN 3 SMALL ALPINE GENTIAN 


Gentiana pneumonanthe G.mvalis 
2 SPRING GENTIAN 4 SMALL FLOWERED GENTIAN, 
G.verna G. aynarella 
5, FIELD GENTIAN 
GG campestris. 


Ph, 1h1, 


GENTIAN TRIBE 239 


greenish stripes extending down the exterior of the rich deep-blue corolla, 
which is rather funnel-shaped than bell-shaped. Humble-bees can get into 
the broader upper part of the funnel, from which point their tongues are long 
enough to reach the honey, though to do so they have to press against the 
bursting anthers, and carry away part of the pollen. At this time the 
stigmas are not mature, but in an older flower it is the stigma that is pressed 
against, and some of the pollen is left on it. There are usually one or two 
blossoms on the same stalk, and the plant is in flower from August to Sep- 
tember. It occurs on several moist heathy places of England, but is very 
rare. The bitter tonic principle, which renders the Gentians so valuable in 
medicine, exists to a considerable degree in this species ; and both this and 
G. amarella may be used instead of the yellow G. lutea, which we procure from 
other countries, and which is found in Italy, Germany, France, Sweden, Lap- 
land, and some parts of North America. In this latter plant the juices are 
so intensely bitter that large tracts of grass land are, in several of these 
countries, left untouched by cattle, to whom, indeed, none of the Gentian 
tribe are acceptable. The medicinal use of the Gentian is of great antiquity, 
and Parkinson says of it: ‘The wonderful wholesomeness of Gentian cannot 
be easilie knowne by reason our daintie tastes refuse to take thereof for the 
bitternesse’ sake ; but otherwise it would undoubtedly worke admirable cures 
for the stomache and lungs. It is also a speciall counterpoison against any 
infection, as against the violence of a mad dog’s tooth.” 

Our plant is the Calathian violet of the old writers. A plant called Marsh 
Felwort, Swertia perennis, is very nearly allied to this. It is said by Hudson 
to have been found in Wales by Dr. Richardson, but it is believed that the 
Marsh Gentian was mistaken for it. Bishop Mant thus alludes to the two 
plants :— 

** And see Marsh Felwort bares to view 
His wheel quintuple’s brilliant blue, 
Cambria, thy pride! if Cambrian coast 
Indeed that native beauty boast. 
Less apt te pay the searcher’s cares 
Than that a kindred name which bears, 
The beauty of the Gentian race 
Whose gallant flowers with ‘ bravery grace,’ 
Or chalky down, or meadow wet, 
The blue Calathian violet.” 

2. Spring Gentian (G. vérna).—Stem tufted, 1-flowered ; leaves egg- 
shaped, lower ones crowded ; calyx angular, with sharp teeth ; corolla bright 
blue, salver-shaped, with 5 distinct lobes, alternating with bifid scales ; perennial. 
This is a very lovely Gentian, sometimes cultivated in gardens, though it is 
smaller than the handsome G. acaulis, which is still more frequently to be 
seen on the flower-bed, and which is a native of the Swiss mountains. The 
Spring Gentian flowers in April. It is a rare plant of Alpine pastures, 
growing in barren limestone districts. It has been found in Teesdale, 
Durham, Westmoreland and Yorkshire, and in some places in Ireland. Its 
stem is prostrate and rooting, and its flower is rather large, and intensely 
blue. 

Many of the Gentians are mountain flowers, some growing at heights 
beyond which nothing is to be found save moss and lichen; and often they 


240 GENTIANEA 


are, on the Swiss mountains, the companions of some of the Primrose tribes 
on the very verge of eternal snow. The severest intense cold does not hurt 
them, and they grow on tropical elevations often at a great height. Until 
recently, it was thought that they never occurred in these regions at a lower 
elevation than 7,852 feet ; but Sir Joseph Hooker, in his botanic researches 
on the Himalayan Mountains, found one, G. arenaria, at an elevation of only 
2,000 feet. The whole climate was there thoroughly tropical, but the 
Gentian grew on mossy rocks cooled by the spring of the river. One species 
has been found on the Himalaya range at the height of 16,000 feet ; and the 
G. prostrata occurs in the Rocky Mountains of America, at an equal elevation 
to this. 

Meyen, the German writer on the Geography of Plants, remarks, “It is 
an inexpressible pleasure which only a botanist can feel, when, coming from 
the North, he ascends a high mountain in a southern region, and finds one 
well-known plant after another. Even in the Swiss mountains his pleasure 
is great ; but how much greater is it when far from home he is wandering 
on the mountains of the southern hemisphere! The sight of a little Gentian, 
very similar to our G. uliginosa and G. nivalis, at a height of 14,000 or 15,000 
feet, as in the Cordilleras of Southern Peru, can enchain a botanist for hours ; 
he again and again gathers this little plant, which takes him, at least in 
imagination, home.” 

3. Small Alpine Gentian (G. nivdlis).—Leaves egg-shaped, lowermost 
broadly elliptical ; branches single-flowered ; corolla salver-shaped, 5-cleft, 
with intermediate smaller segments; calyx cylindrical, with five keeled 
angles; annual. This is an exceedingly rare and beautiful little Gentian, 
having an erect stem, slightly branched, and from two to six inches high. 
It grows on the summits of Highland mountains, bearing in August flowers 
of a most brilliant blue colour. 

4, Small-flowered Gentian, or Felwort ((. amarélla).—Stem erect, 
branched, many-flowered ; calyx 5-cleft ; corolla salver-shaped, 5-cleft, fringed 
in the throat; annual. This species grows on dry limestone hills, but it is 
not frequent. It is a formal-looking plant, remarkably erect, with a square 
leafy stem, often tinged with purple, very variable in size, being from three 
to twelve inches high. ‘The flowers are rather large, of a purplish colour, 
expanding only in bright sunshine, and appearing in August and September. 

The Felwort appears to have been highly prized, for we find Gower 
saying— 

‘**Though toke she Feldwodde and verveyne, 
Of herbes ben not better tweyne.”’ 


5, Field Gentian (G. campéstris).—Stem erect, branched, many-flowered ; 
calyx 4-cleft, the 2 outer lobes much larger than the others ; corolia salver- 
shaped, 4-cleft, fringed in the throat ; annual. This plant is very similar to 
the last, but distinguished from it by its larger 4-cleft flowers, which often 
cluster in great numbers at the upper part of the stem from August to 
October. The plant is very common on hilly pastures, especially in Scotland ; 
and on limestone hills, near the sea, its pale lilac blossoms often stand up 
above the short grasses. It contains in every part of it some of the tonic, 


GENTIAN TRIBE 241 


bitter principle common to the tribe, and is sometimes used by country 
people to mingle with their hops in brewing. ‘This bitter principle, like the 
acridity of the buttercups, has doubtless been developed by the Gentians to 
protect them from extermination by herbivorous quadrupeds. Several of the 
species have, in various times and places, been used instead of the hop ; and 
before the general culture of the latter plant, malt liquor received much of 
its flavour from a species called in those days Felwort, Bitterwort, Baldmoyne, 
or Bald-money. In those times, when queens and maids of honour drank 
foaming ale for their breakfast, several bitter plants were in much request ; 
and Gerarde tells, that a species of Gentian was sent to him from “ Burgundie 
by Master Isaac de Lanne, for the encrease of his garden.” The species to 
which he refers appears to be the Gentian of commerce, G. lutea, still used 
for various disorders, but not for ‘so many as in those days, when it was 
considered soporific as well as tonic. Modern physicians find, however, that 
one species at least, G. mucrophylla, has soporific properties, and it has been 
used in many instances in procuring sleep for the weary sufferer. The basis 
of the celebrated Portland powder is said to be Gentian ; and as the roots of 
nearly all the species contain a large proportion of sugar, an intoxicating 
liquor has been distilled from them, which the Swiss call Gentianwasser. 
The French term the Gentian La Gentiane, and the Germans Der Enzian ; 
the Dutch call it Gentiaan, the Italians Genziana, and the Russians Goret- 
schafka. 


2. GENTIANELLA (Cicéndia). 


1, Least Gentianélla (C. jiliférmis).— Leaves slender, lanceolate, 
sessile ; stem angled, forked; flower-stalks elongated; annual. This is a 
graceful little plant, very similar in its habit to the dwarf centaury, and with 
a stem about the same height, but with smaller flowers. It is from two to 
four inches high, the narrow leaves withering early, and the flowers opening 
only during sunshine. These flowers are yellow, occurring from July to 
September. It differs from the Gentians in having four instead of five 
stamens, and its calyx and corolla are 4-cleft. It grows in sandy bays and on 
sandy heaths. It is found in the south and south-west of England, and in 
sandy turf-bogs in Ireland. Some separate it from Cicendia and call it 
Microcala. 

2. Guernsey Gentianélla (C. pusillum).— Similar to the last-mentioned, 
but smaller and more slender ; flowers pink, sometimes with the parts in fives. 
Lobes of the calyx awl-shaped, the lobes of the corolla ending in little points. 
It is an annual plant with several branched stems arising from the root. 
it flowers from July to September, and grows on sandy commons in the 
Channel Islands. 


3. CENTAURY (Erythréa). 


1. Common Centaury (£. centaviriwm).—Stem quadrangular, branched 
above ; leaves oblong ; flowers in nearly sessile panicles ; calyx half as long 
as the tube of the opening corolla; annual. The Common Centaury is a 
pretty and frequent plant on heaths and dry pastures, as well as on cliffs by 
the sea, from June to September. If we look for its flowers on a cloudy day, 

I1.—31 


249 GENTIANEA 


we find that they are all closed up, nor are they ever to be seen in full beauty 
after three o’clock. We have, however, sometimes seen a gathered specimen 
gradually unfold its blossoms even on an evening, when placed on the hearth 
in the full light and warmth of the fire. The stem bears its panicles of 
blossoms near the top. They are of a beautiful rose-colour, in very pretty 
form, and varied by the golden anthers. The leaves are of a light delicate 
green, remarkably smooth, and having strong parallel ribs. They are 
intensely bitter, and possess tonic properties ; as Dodsley says— 


‘¢ Wormwood and Centaury, their bitter juice, 
To aid digestion’s sickly powers, refine.” 


The Centaury is a long approved medicinal herb, and undoubtedly one of 
the very best which our native fields supply. We have the authority of 
Dr. George Moore, for saying that it may be taken with great success in brow 
agues and intermittent fevers. This author remarks, that the poor on the 
coast of Sussex make a strong infusion of this excellent bitter ; and we have 
ourselves seen it much used in Kent as a tonic, and often dried for the pur- 
pose. Mr. Purton also considers an infusion either of the leaves or roots good 
for weak digestions ; and Professor Burnett remarks that did not our catalogue 
already groan, this plant might be added to the list of the ‘“‘ Materia Medica.” 
The old herbalists who called it ‘the ordinary small Centaury ” say that it 
is “under the dominion of the sun, as appears in that the flowers open and 
shut as the sun either showeth or hideth his face.” They recommend it as a 
cure for jaundice and agues, and also, in a fresh state, as an outward applica- 
tion to wounds. They say that the infusion of the plant removes all freckles, 
and add, that “the herb is so safe you cannot fail in the using of it... . "Tis 
very wholesome, but not very toothsome.” 

2. Dwarf-branched Centaury (£. pulchélla).—Stem quadrangular, 
much branched ; leaves egg-shaped, the uppermost oblong ; flowers stalked, in 
loose panicles, axillary, and terminal ; calyx nearly as long as the tube of the 
opening corolla ; annual. This species is much like the preceding, and prob- 
ably but a variety of it. ‘The stem is either simple, or much branched, even 
from the base, six or eight inches high, having numerous rose-coloured flowers 
in leafy forked panicles, with a single flower-stalk between the branches. 
The length of the tube of the corolla must be observed exactly at the time 
when the flower is beginning to expand. The plant blossoms from July to 
October. 

3. Broad-leaved Tufted Centaury (Z. lati/élia).—Stem quadrangular, 
short, branched from the base; leaves broadly elliptical, blunt; flowers in 
crowded forked tufts, sessile ; calyx rather shorter than the tube of the open- 
ing corolla; segments of the corolla lanceolate ; annual. This species has a 
thick stem, often not more than two or three inches high, though occasionally 
taller. It usually divides itself into three main branches, and has very large 
root and stem-leaves strongly ribbed, its pink tufts of flowers opening in 
June and July. It occurs in various places near the sea. 

4. Dwarf-tufted Centaury (ZL. linarifiélia).—Stem simple, or branched; 
root-leaves crowded, tapering at the base ; stem-leaves oblong, linear, blunt ; 
flowers in sessile clusters ; calyx as long as the tube of the opening 


1 


2 


LEAST GENTIANELLA 


Cicendia filiforms 
COMMON CEN'TAURY 


Erythreea centaurium 


DWARF 


TUFTED cC 
E. hnarifolia 


IPUs IE. 


4 


DWARF BRANCHED C 


E pulchella 


BROAD LEAVED 


E 


TUFTED C 


centaurium var 


aan} 
re 
? i) mu Deer 


GENTIAN TRIBE” 248 


corolla, deeply cleft; annual. This plant is found on various sandy sea- 
shores. Its leaves are all narrow and ribbed, and it varies in height from 
two to six inches. Its rose-coloured flowers expand from June to August. 

Sir Joseph Hooker is of the opinion that we have only one British species, 
—Ii. centaurium—ot which the others are at most sub-species. 


4. YELLOW-worT (Chldra). 


Perfoliate Yellow-wort (C. perfolidia).—Leaves connate, perfoliate, 
ego-shaped, glaucous; panicle forked, many-flowered ; calyx divided to its 
base into long narrow segments ; annual. This pretty plant can scarcely be 
called common; though on chalky soils south of Durham and Westmore- 
land, and in Ireland, we may often find it in abundance. On the cliffs 
of Dover one might see on any summer day a hundred plants during a 
morning walk, the yellow flower reminding us, both in form and_ hue, 
of some of the garden jessamines. But the Yellow-wort is an herbaceous, 
and not a shrubby, plant; and its pale sea-green stem, a foot or a foot 
and a half high, runs through the leaves, and, like them, is_ thickly 
covered with sea-green bloom. The flowers open only in sunshine, and have 
a singular habit of expansion: for the central flower unfolds early in the 
morning and closes at noon, and then the lateral flowers expand and remain 
open till sunset. It is very bitter, and is often called on this account Yellow 
Gentian, and doubtless its properties are somewhat similar to those of that 
tonic bitter plant. The seeds, if pressed, are found to be full of a yellowish 
thick juice. The whole plant will afford a good yellowdye. It was formerly 
called blackstonia, after a London surgeon named Blackstone. In the time 
of John Ray, it was termed Centaureum luteum. Lister, in writing to Ray in 
1669, says, “I add, by way of present, a couple of pastiles, or small cakes, 
made of the juices, dried in the sun, of our English store of plants ; they are 
unmixed, and purely natural as they were taken from the plants by incision. 
The one was, in the drawing or issuing out of the plants, a purple juice ; the 
other a gold colour. The one burns freely with a flame, and is of no offensive 
or ungrateful smell ; the other burns not at all with a flame, at least continues 
it not, and is intoxicating ; they are both bitter. Guess me the plants that 
afford them. I have a score of different juices beside by me in cakes ; but 
these are, if I mistake not (at least to the best of my knowledge), nowhere, 
made mention of by any author, although the plants be common in England.” 
As our great naturalist replied, that he was “not so cunning as to tell” what 
plants afforded these cakes, Mr. Lister informed him that they were our 
Yellow-wort, and one of the Lettuce plants, Lactuca sylvestris. 

The Chlora blossoms from June to September. The French call it Clore ; 
the Germans, Biberkraut. It is still sometimes termed Perfoliate Centaury. 


5. Buck-BEAN (Menyinthes). 


Buck-bean, or Marsh Trefoil (JM. trifolidta).—Leaves alternate, 
stalked ; leaflets 3, equal, inversely egg-shaped, wavy ; flower-stalk supporting 
a stalked cluster; perennial. A more lovely plant than this is not to be 
found in our native Flora. It grows in marshy boggy grounds, and on the 
margins of woodland tarns, which it sometimes covers with its matted stems 

31—2 


244 ~ GENTIANEA—GENTIAN TRIBE 


—spots so well loved by the botanist. Mr. Curtis justly says, that it is equal 
in beauty to the kalmias, rhododendrons, and exotic heaths, on which so 
much money is expended, while this is unregarded. Certainly, the rambler 
who shall at its flowering time come across some lonely pond, deep hidden in 
the woods, of which this plant has taken full possession, is never likely to 
forget the wonderful beauty of the scene presented by thousands of spikes 
of fringed flowers. The stem is but little raised above the moist soil or 
water, and has at its top three succulent sea-green leaflets, very much 
like those of the common field-bean; each leaf-stalk has a sheathing 
base, opposite to one of which rises the beautiful cluster of blossoms. 
Before these are fully expanded, they are of a bright rose tint ; and when 
quite open, the petals are covered with a white silken fringe, like plush. The 
flowers appear in June and July. This plant is often called Bog-bean, and is 
the Meniante of the French, and the Fieberklee, or Bocksbohne, of the Germans. 
The Dutch call it Driebladige ruigbloem, and also Boex boonen; while about 
Hamburg it is known as the “ Flower of Liberty,” and the inhabitants say 
that it grows only within their land, and has never been seen in the south of 
Denmark, which adjoins it. Sir William Hooker saw it in great plenty in 
Iceland, and says that it is of much use to travellers there, who are unac- 
quainted with the route on the morasses; for they are well aware that 
wherever it grows they may safely pass over its thickly-woven roots, which 
make a firm bed beneath the soft subsoil. The Icelanders use pieces of 
their matted tufts to prevent the saddle or any load from chafing the 
horse’s back. 

The bitter roots of the Bog-bean form one of our best native tonic 
medicines, and the author has known them to be placed in wine, which was 
afterwards drunk with very great benefit by persons afflicted with rheuma- 
tism. They are also an old and effectual remedy for ague ; and in Sweden 
the plant is used as a substitute for the hop, two ounces of the leaves serving 
instead of two pounds of that plant. The Laplanders eat the powdered 
roots, which are full of starch, but probably employ some means to lessen 
their bitterness ; possibly the mixture with meal in making it into bread, and 
the subsequent baking, sufliciently mitigate this unpleasant character. From 
Parkinson we learn that the plant was in his time called Marsh Clover. 


6. VILLARSIA (Milldrsia). 


Nymphea-like Villarsia (V. nympheoides).—Leaves round, heart- 
shaped at the base, floating, wavy at the edges ; stem long, round, branched ; 
perennial. This is a most elegant water-plant, bearing its large yellow 
plaited flowers in July and August. It is very rare, but occurs in the still 
back-waters of the Thames and some rivers in Yorkshire; though north of 
Norfolk and in Scotland and Ireland it is thought to be naturalized only. In 
Holland it is so abundant as almost to cover some of the canals. The French 
botanist, M. de Villars, whose memory the name of this flower records, wrote 
in 1786 a “Flora of Dauphiné,” which is in use even in the present day. 
The leaves of the plant are much like those of the water-lily, but are smaller 
in size. The Villarsia may be easily propagated either by seeds or by 


J PRREOLIATE YELLOW- WORT 3 NYMPH-GA-LIKE VILLARSIA 


Chlora perfoliata Villarsia nympheoides 
2 BUCKBEAN le JACOB'S LADDER 
Menyanthes trifoliata Polemmonium c#ruleum 


Pl, 143. 


is 
P 


nsf ae rat igs 


Ve 
‘ 


POLEMONIACEZ—JACOB’'S LADDER TRIBE 245 


dividing the roots, and, once established, it is very difficult of extirpation. 
The canals in some parts of Holland are covered with its bright yellow flowers. 
It is also known as Limnanthemuwm peltatum. 


Order LVI. POLEMONIACEA—JACOB’S LADDER 
TRIBE. 


Calyx deeply 5-cleft, not falling off; corolla regular, 5-lobed ; stamens 5, 
from the middle of the tube of the corolla; ovary 3-celled ; style single; 
stigma 3-cleft ; capsule 3-celled, 3-valved. ‘This order consists of herbaceous 
plants, often having handsome flowers, but possessing no important properties. 
They are remarkable for the often blue colour of their pollen; and several, 
as the various species of Phlox, Gilia, and Cobea, adorn our gardens. 

Jacop’s LappER (Poleménium).— Corolla wheel-shaped, with erect 
lobes; stamens bearded at the base; cells of the capsule many-seeded. 
Name, the Greek name of the plant. 


JACOB'S LADDER (Poleménium). 


Blue Jacob’s Ladder, or Greek Valerian (P. ceriélewm).—Stem 
angular ; leaves smooth, pinnate ; leaflets egg-shaped, somewhat lanceolate ; 
flowers in panicles ; perennial. This plant, though very common in gardens, 
is rare in a wild state, and is chiefly found in the north of this kingdom. 
Several of its localities in Scottish woods are recorded, but it is doubtful if it 
is truly wild there, though on some banks and bushy spots of Yorkshire and 
Derbyshire it appears to be really so. The stem is angular, about one or two 
feet high, and its pinnated leaf suggested its name in days when men readily 
traced in Nature some similarity to the objects and allusions of Holy Writ :— 

‘* And see of favour’d York the child, 
Or Derby’s mountain thickets wild, 
The plant not strange to Scottish skies, 
Whose leaflets, ladder-like, arise, 
Pointing to azure vaults above— 
The Patriarch’s Dream—in southern grove 
Infrequent.” 

The flowers of this plant appear in June and July ; in colour they are 
pale-blue or white, and of a delicate texture. The whole plant is somewhat 
astringent, but has not the virtues which we might from its name expect. 
Pliny relates of the Poleméniwm, that it had also among the Greeks the name 
Chilodynamia, on account of its excellent properties ; while the name by 
which it is known to us is, according to his account, from polemos, war, 
because two kings, having each claimed the merit of discovering the great 
uses of the herb, had recourse to arms to settle the disputed question. But 
every one conversant with the names of ancient writers is aware of the diffi- 
culty of exactly ascertaining in some cases the plants intended. Professor 
Burnett believes that the Marsh Polemonium of Hippocrates was the Gratiola, 
or hedge hyssop, a plant possessing very active properties. ‘The French call 
our Jacob’s Ladder La Valériane Grecque. Itis the Speerkraut of the Germans ; 
the Spierkruid of the Dutch ; and the Polemonium of the Italians. 


246 CONVOLVULACEAL 


Order LVII. CONVOLVULACEA—BINDWEED TRIBE. 


Calyx inferior, of 4—5 sepals, not falling off; corolla funnel-shaped, bell- 
shaped, or tubular, regular, plaited ; stamens 5, from the base of the corolla ; 
ovary 2—4-celled, few-seeded, surrounded below by a fleshy ring ; style 1; 
stigmas 2; capsule 1—4-celled. This order consists either of herbs or shrubs 
which are generally climbing, bearing large and showy flowers and milky 
juices. One of our British genera, Cuscuta, is parasitic, and has no leaves. 

1. BrNDWEED (Convlvulus).—Corolla vase-shaped, with 5 plaits and 5 very 
shallow lobes; style 1; stigmas 2; capsule 2-celled and 2-valved. Name 
from the Latin convolvo, to entwine, from the twisting habit of many species. 

2. HoopED BINDWEED (Calystégia).—Calyx with 5 sepals inclosed within 2 
very large opposite bracts ; corolla vase-shaped ; style 15; stigma 2-lobed ; 
capsule 2-celled, 1-valved. Name from the Greek alos, beautiful, and _stege, 
a covering, from its bracts. By some authors the species are included in the 
genus Convolvulus. 

3. DoppER (Cusciita).—Calyx 4—5-cleft ; corolla pitcher-shaped, 4—5- 
cleft, with 4—5 scales at the base within. Name said to be derived from the 
Arabic keshout, to bind. 


1. BINDWEED (Convélvulus). 


Field Bindweed (C. arvénsis).—Stem climbing ; leaves arrow-shaped, 
their lobes acute ; stalks mostly single-flowered ; bracts minute, distant from 
the flower ; perennial. Everybody knows the pretty pink or white vase-like 
cups of the small Bindweed, which, in June and July, rise from trailing stems 
on many a wayside bank, shutting up at night or when rain is coming. The 
farmer knows them but too well, for this plant is one of the most trouble- 
some weeds of his cornfield, twining itself around the stalks of the wheat or 
barley, and taking such good hold that no wind or weather can rend it from 
its support. A blade of grass, a tall nettle, a bush, or any other object near 
it, is soon garlanded with its numerous almond-scented flowers. It has many 
country names, as Bindweed, Bearbind, Hedgebell, Ropewind, Withywind— 
all expressive of its clinging habits, besides some names which betoken the 
dislike entertained of the intruder, and which are unsuited to our pages. In 
France the plant is called Le liseron des champs ; and in Germany Die Winde. 
In Italy the Convolvulus has the name of Valucchio ; and the Spaniards call 
it Correguela. It is most difficult of eradication, for the white jointed roots 
not only increase readily, but are very tenacious of life, and penetrate to such 
a depth in the soil as to lie almost beyond the reach of the ordinary instru- 
ments of culture; while, if only a small piece is left in the earth, it soon 
sends forth its trailing stem above the surface. In light dry soils, which are 
peculiarly adapted to it, the roots sometimes extend three feet below the 
surface. Miller says, that its abundant growth is often a sign that gravel 
lies beneath. Its seed-vessels are so rarely formed that Sir J. E. Smith 
remarks that he had never seen them; and many botanists believed, some 
years since, that the seed was not perfected in this country. That opinion 
is now known to be erroneous, and the author has gathered near Ramsgate 
several of the dry capsules, which are about as large as a pea, containing the 


] 


FIELD BIND-WEED 
Convolvalns arvensis 
3 SBA BIND ~-WEED 


Convolvulus soldanella 


Pl. 144, 


, 


GREAT BIND WEED 


Corvolvulus 


seplum 


BINDWEED TRIBE 247 


matured blackish seeds. The flowers expand all the summer ; they are some- 
times of a deep-rose colour, at others paler, or even white ; and they often 
serve as canopies to some little lilac-coloured insects, which, probably, find 
food as well as shelter within them. 


“Our vernal flowers have faded now, for summer is abroad ; 
There’s thicker foliage on the trees, and greener is the sod ; 
You cannot ransack wood or hill, the wayside hedge or dell, 
But you shall find a store of flowers whose charms no tongue can tell. 
It is the month of roses, the sweetbriar, and the thorn ; 
While peering at the sunshine amidst the emerald corn, 
The pimpernel thrusts out its bloom of scarlet, closing up, 
At every passing shower or cloud, the treasures of its cup ; 
And sweet as a bruised walnut-leaf, when it begins to fade, 
The lemon-scented agrimony perfumes all the glade, 
With starry blossoms topaz-hued ; while near them in the wheat, 
Pink-bell’d Convolvuli trail out their corals fair and sweet.” 


The root of this Bindweed affords a resinous substance of some medicinal 
power, though not so active as the scammony which is procured from the 
root of C. scammonia, and which is imported from the Levant, where the 
Convolvulus which produces it is very common. Several of the tribe afford 
similar resins, and the medicinal jalap is yielded by the root of the Jpomea 
purga. 


2. HoopED BINDWEED (Calystégia). 


1. Great Hooded Bindweed (C. sépium).—Stem climbing; leaves 
arrow-shaped, their lobes often blunt, as if cut off; stalks single-flowered ; 
bracts heart-shaped ; stigmas short and blunt; perennial. The plants of this 
genus are very nearly allied to those of the last, differing chiefly in the con- 
spicuous leaf-like bracts. Our Great White Bindweed is a well-known wild 
flower, its large foliage hanging about the hedges, and giving them, in 
autumn, a yellow tinge by its deep colour. The leaves differ from those of 
any other native plant in the peculiar manner in which their lobes are cut 
off at the base ; but they are not all thus characterized, as some are heart- 
shaped. The beautiful large snowy bells, sometimes striped with pink, and 
occasionally entirely of pale rose-colour, hang gracefully among the large 
leaves from June to September, and compensate by their elegance of form 
and hue for the absence of fragrance. They are not so sensitive to rain as 
the flowers of the Field Bindweed, nor do they close until the near approach 
of night. Country people call the plant Old Man’s Nightcap and Great 
Withywind. Its roots have medicinal properties, similar to those of the 
scammony ; and Dr. Withering thought they might be used as a substitute 
for that drug. Swine eat them without injury. 

The large Bindweed attains great luxuriance in hedges and banks near 
rivers, sending out masses of leaves on its climbing stems. Meyen, referring 
to the Lianas, or climbing plants, which are so striking a feature of tropical 
scenery, and give to the primeval forests their character of exuberant vege- 
tation, says, “Plants of this kind are almost unknown in our northern 
regions. The hop, the honeysuckles, and bryonies can give us only a faint 
idea of the Lianas of those countries ; but our Great White Bindweed, which 
often grows profusely over the highest bushes, may give us, by its beautiful 


248 CONVOLVULACEAL 


leaf and the size of the flower, some notion of the way in which the tropical 
Convolvuli adorn the tops of the highest trees.” 

2. Seaside Convolvulus (C. soldanélla).— Leaves kidney-shaped, 
slightly angular, fleshy ; stalks 1-flowered, with 4 membranous angles ; bracts 
egg-shaped, close to the flowers; perennial. This is one of the many in- 
teresting ornaments of our sandy shores; where, though we may sometimes 
wander for miles without seeing it, it is in some places very abundant, and is 
always an exceedingly pretty plant. On the sandhills about Sandwich, and 
among pebbles on the shore at New Romney, in Kent, it is plentiful ; as it 
is also common on the sandy shores of the western counties of England. 

The flowers of this species are rose-coloured, and very conspicuous, 
expanding from June to September. The seed-vessel is remarkably large, 
sometimes even as large as a hazel-nut, and the seeds themselves scarcely 
smaller than peas. The Soldanella grows not only on hills and banks of sand, 
but also in crevices of rocks or on cliffs. Mr. Thompson, referring to its 
growth in Wales, says: “It is one of the productions claimed by the grey- 
wacke formation of the Penmaenmawr mountains, and denied to the limestone 
of Orme’s Head. It is true that a few specimens may be encountered near 
Llandudno, but they are seldom seen in a flowering state, and I have never 
found one seed-vessel of that species on the shore opposite the town of Con- 
way, although familiar to me from frequent search. The plant, however, 
flowers and produces seed in great abundance on the level tract of shore 
subtending the cliffs of Penmaenbach.” The flowers of this species close 
during night and rainy weather. They are often almost all that can be seen 
of the plant, as the leaves are nearly buried in the sand, the stem rarely 
taking to twining as in the other species. 


3. DODDER (Cuscita). 


1. Greater Dodder (C. ewropéa).—Heads of flowers dense and sessile, 
with bracts, styles not protruding beyond the mouth of corclla; tube of the 
corolla longer than the calyx; scales pressed close to the tube; annual. 
This is a less frequent kind of Dodder than that which so commonly winds 
about our furze bushes. It is, like all the species, without leaves, and has 
very long twining stems, covered with small tubercles, which serve as roots ; 
and in July and August the little clusters of pale-yellowish rose-coloured 
flowers expand. The plant is, however, rather local than rare, abounding in 
Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and some other counties, entwining thistles, 
nettles, hops, beans, and some other plants. Unlike other strictly parasitic 
plants, the seeds of the Dodder germinate at first in common soil, though if 
the seedlings be kept there they very soon perish. When in the neighbour- 
hood of vegetation suited to their growth, they twine about it, sending their 
coils from left to right, contrary to the sun’s apparent course. After they 
have well inserted their aerial roots within the substance of the neighbouring 
plants, the original root, from which they derived their earliest nutriment, 
dies, leaving them to feed on the juices of the adopted vegetable. A writer 
in Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History, says of the Greater Dodder : 
“This parasite can be established wherever the hop plant grows, by placing, 
in the autumn, a wreath of the Dodder-vine, bearing ripe capsules, on the 


l GREATER DODDER 3. LESSER D 
Cuseuta enroprea G epltymman 
2. FLAX D 4. CLOVER D 


C. epilinam C. tritoli 


Pl, 145. 


BINDWEED TRIBE 249 


earth about the base of the stems of the hop. The seeds of the Dodder, 
escaping from their capsules, will remain on the earth’s surface through the 
winter, and germinate early in the ensuing spring, some days ere the stems 
of ae hop Tahooe forth. It will then be highly pleasing to observe the 
spiral convolutions of the sprouting embryo of the Dodder, convincing us 
that vegetable instincts are innate ; for even in the seed, if examined, the 
embryo may be found convolved about the central fleshy globose albumen. 
By the time the hop stems will have burst through the soil, many of the 
embryos of the Dodder will have perished; but when the survivors happen 
to touch the hop-stem, they very soon adhere, and insert their sap-sucking 
glands into the bark of the hop-stem, and, from the date of doing this, 
speedily change their pale aspect and feeble condition to a ruddy, healthy 
hue and a state of gross luxuriance ; and these latter effects are maintained 
through all the copious ramifications of the plant by the branches emitting a 
fresh cluster of absorbing glands into the hop-stem at many of the points at 
which they clasp it.” This botanist adds, that he had the Dodder growing 
on hops in his garden for three successive summers. “In one of the summers,” 
he remarks, ‘it flourished besides on an exotic species of teasel (Acwnops 
vulgaris), nearly allied to the British Dipsacus pilosus, which had grown up 
beside the rubbish-heap, merely from the dead seed-bearing stems of the 
teasel and the Dodder, along with those of the hop, having met at the 
rubbish-heap during the preceding winter, in the operation of cleansing the 
garden of its annual herbage. The reddened wreaths of Dodder branches, 
knotted with heads of flowers, were hung in elegant festoons about the arm- 
spread branches of the teasel, and contrasted strikingly with its abundant 
verdant leaves. I have known this species transplanted, by cuttings, or 
rather by a branch broken off, into a stove, and there successfully established 
on a growing plant of the red Malabar nightshade, and on some other plant 
whose name I have forgotten. In the green-houses at Cambridge, a very 
vigorously-growing perennial species of Dodder, if I rightly remember, from 
China, luxuriates on plants of the common and broad-leaved ivy, and on the 
succulent shoots of the pelargonium, known by the name of the horse-shoe 
geranium.” Mr. Dovaston remarks, that he has seen one of the Dodders in 
such tangled profusion at Liphook, in Hampshire, that it absolutely pulled 
down and killed the nettles. 

Gerarde describes the Dodder as “a strange herbe, altogether without 
leaves or roote, like unto threds, very much snarled or wrapped together 
confusedly, winding itselfe about bushes and hedges, and sundrie kindes of 
herbes. The threds are somewhat red, upon which grow here and there 
little round heads or knops, bringing forth at the first slender white flowers, 
afterwards a small seede.” The old writers had several profane and coarse 
names for the plant. It was also commonly called Tetter and Strangle-weed ; 
and the learned Sir Thomas Browne, who mentions it by these names, tells 
in his “Quincunx” of a rural charm used in his day against these trouble- 
some twining plants, which consisted of placing a chalked tile at each of the 
four corners, and another in the middle of the field in which it grew, “in 
order,” as he says, “to diffuse the magic all about.” 

2. Flax Dodder (C. epilinum).—Heads of flowers with bracts, sessile, 

If,—32 


250 CON VOLVULACEA 


and very succulent, styles included ; corolla with a globose tube, scarcely 
longer than the bell-shaped calyx ; scales closely pressed ; annual. This is 
a naturalized and not a truly wild plant. It is abundant in Germany, and is 
supposed to have been brought into this country with the imported flax-seed. 
It is very injurious to the plant on which it is parasitic. Mr. J. E. Bowman 
discovered the species in 1836 in some flax in a field near Ellesmere, in 
Shropshire. He at first took it to be C. ewropwa, but finding, on further 
examination, that the structure differed somewhat from that of that plant, 
he forwarded it to Sir Wm. Hooker for examination. This botanist decided 
it to be the species which is in Germany so very destructive to the flax crop, 
stunting the growth of the stems by closely interlacing them, and he suggested 
to the discoverer the probability that all Dodder plants found on flax in this 
country would prove to be of this species, an opinion which subsequent 
observations seem to have confirmed. 

The flowers in this species are large and succulent, more decidedly sessile 
than in UC. europea, fewer in a head, very pale in colour, and of greenish rather 
than reddish-yellow hue, with a membranous bract of a reddish colour under 
each head, but none under each flower ; the calyx is large and spreading, its 
five acute teeth about as long as the corolla. Like the stems of its congeners, 
those of this Dodder turn from west to east, often embracing several flax 
plants in their coils, and twisting them together as in a mesh of cords. 
‘Strictly speaking,” Mr. Bowman remarks, “no station can be given for this 
species, as it can only come to perfection where flax is cultivated ; for though 
ripe seeds which have been shed upon the ground may germinate the ensuing 
spring, the young plants soon die if the flax be not at hand on which to fix 
themselves. Accordingly, I could not find a single specimen in the same 
field the ensuing summer, 1837, the crop having been changed. This may 
account for a circumstance which occurred many years ago, and which 
puzzled me at the time, and also confirmed Sir Wm. Hooker's opinion, that 
it will only grow upon flax. I had sown some purchased flax-seed in a back 
border in my garden, the plants from which were infested with C. europea 
(as I believed) ; I sowed some of the Dodder seeds among nettles in the 
corner of a field, and was disappointed at their not producing a single 
plant, though I now think it probable that they germinated and died 
away for want of their proper food. If botanists would search in fields 
of growing flax, or among purchased seed in spring, they would probably 
be rewarded by finding either living plants, or seeds of this troublesome 
parasite, which I suspect is not uncommon; and it would well repay the 
farmer to rid his flax-seed of this worst species of tares before sowing it. 
The seeds are large, nearly round, and would easily be detected among 
the flax.” 

Since the period in which this opinion was given it has become a well- 
known fact, that the seeds of this Dodder are continually being imported 
with foreign seed, often in company with the gold of pleasure, the darnel, 
the three-horned galium, and other plants which trouble the farmer. 
Professor Lindley, in some recent remarks on the subject, says also, that if 
flax be again sown on the same land, it is astonishing, however few the 
weeds might have been in the first instance, how greatly they become 


BINDWEED TRIBE 251 


augmented in the second sowing. “In 1853,” says this botanist, “we 
examined a crop of flax grown from foreign seeds, which had in it a few of 
these weeds: seeds of this crop were sown again in another field on the same 
farm in 1854, but with a four-fold increase of all the above-named weeds, 
together with the usual British examples. The Dodder, indeed, which 
presented but a few isolated patches in 1853, in the following year became 
spread throughout the crop to its irreparable injury.” 

3. Lesser Dodder (C. epithymum). — Heads of many small flowers, 
sessile, and with bracts at the base ; corolla with cylindrical tube, longer than 
the bell-shaped calyx; scales converging, as long as the tube of the corolla ; 
style and stamens extending beyond mouth of corolla; annual. This is a 
very frequent plant on heath lands, winding its dark red threads in 
entangling meshes about the plants there, sometimes pulling down the yellow 
tormentil, sometimes lacing together whole clumps of the stems of the thyme, 
and other flowers which grow among the heather. But it is the furze-bush, 
the golden furze, which is the chief victim of this parasite, and we have seen 
during August and September large tracts of furze-clad land where the 
bushes were so bound about with its threads that they presented a most 
singular appearance, and the form of their branches was quite concealed, 
while not a yellow bud had found strength or room to expand, though on 
plants from which the parasite was absent many a fragrant blossom was 
spread out in luxuriant beauty. The flowers of this Dodder are very pretty ; 
they are small, flesh-coloured, and so thick in texture that they look as if cut 
out of wax; they grow in dense clusters, but it is almost impossible to get 
away a mass of their blooms and stems from the prickly bough which they 
grasp so closely. It has been said that our word Dodder is from an old word 
signifying, to tremble, because with the least breath of wind the plant ‘“ doth 
dodder or tremble.” In France the plant is called Cuscute, and the species 
growing on the flax had the old country name of Groutte de lin, flaxdrop ; in 
Germany it is termed Flachsseide ; in Holland Warkruid ; and in Russia, 
Pawiliza. Tt seems to thrive well on any shrub to which it once adheres ; 
and, according to Sweet, will flower freely, and become very handsome on 
plants in a hothouse. All countries, warm, cold, and temperate in climate, 
seem to produce Dodder. It is common in Sweden, on the Swiss Alps, in 
France, Germany and Italy ; has been found in Egypt and India, and on the 
shores of the Mediterranean. ‘The species are very acrid. though not now. 
used medicinally, they were formerly much prized as remedies, and some 
writers think that they have as powerful properties as some plants of the 
Convolvulus family. The old herbalists, who called the Lesser Dodder the 
Dodder of Thyme, held that the parasite, partaking of the nature of the 
plant on which it grew, was more beneficial when found on that than on any 
other herb. One of them says, “He is a physician, indeed, that hath wit 
enough to choose his Dodder according to the nature of the disease and 
humour peccant.” We find Michael Drayton saying— 

‘* Here Dodder, by whose help alone 
Old agues are removed.” 

As thyme was the ‘‘hottest herb” on which this plant was known to 

fix itself, so Dodder of Thyme was considered available for what were termed 
32—2 


252 BORAGINEA 


“cold greefs” and “trembling of the heart.” It was said to be good for 
“fainting and swooning, and helpful in all diseases and griefs of the spleen.” 

Professor Lindley mentions a gigantic species of Dodder, C. racemosus, a 
uative of Afghanistan, which even preys upon itself ; one of its masses half 
covered a willow-tr2e twenty or thirty feet high, and Sir J. D. Hooker saw a 
Dodder in Nepal which formed a golden web over date-trees. One or two 
other species, called Sipo de Chumbo, are articles of Brazilian pharmacy. 
Lindley mentions that the powder of the dried plants sprinkled over wounds 
is thought to be healing. 

4. Clover Dodder (C. trifélii).—Heads of flowers small, sessile, and 
having a bract at the base ; tube of the corolla cylindrical ; scales converging ; 
calyx narrowed below, as long as the tube of the corolla; annual. This plant 
is very similar to the last, differing from it in having rounded spaces between 
the scales, while in the last these spaces are narrow and acute. The stems 
are, however, of a more yellowish-red. It is found chiefly on clover in the Isle 
of Wight, and some other parts of England, bearing its small white flowers 
in June and July. It is supposed to have been introduced with clover-seeds 
from the Continent, but some botanists doubt if it is any more than a variety 
of the Lesser Dodder. 


Order LVIII. BORAGINEAX—BORAGE TRIBE. 


Calyx in 5, rarely 4, deep divisions, not falling off; corolla wheel-shaped, 
bell-shaped, or salver-shaped, 5- or rarely 4-cleft, frequently having valves or 
teeth at the mouth of the tube; stamens 5, inserted into the corolla, and 
alternate with its lobes; ovary 4-parted, 4-seeded ; style 1, rising from the 
base of the divided ovary ; fruit consisting of 4, rarely 2, nut-like seeds, each 
enclosed in a pericarp. This order consists of herbs or shrubs, with alternate 
leaves without stipules, their surface covered with minute asperities, on which 
are seated hairs or bristles, and with flowers arranged mostly in one-sided 
spikes or cymes. Many of the plants are eminently beautiful, lke the 
different species of Viper’s Bugloss, and in many the young buds are rolled 
up at the termination of the spikes into a little coil, and are pink, while the 
expanded flowers are blue. Blue, purple, and red are the prevailing colours 
of the blossoms. They are not remarkable for useful properties, but several 
possess a slight degree of mucilage, and the roots of some, like the Alkanet, 
are used in dyeing. Many of the plants of the order are mere weeds, with 
little beauty. 

1. Vieer’s Buctoss (Echiwin).—Corolla irregular, with an open mouth ; 
stamens unequal in length. Name from the Greek echis, a viper, because the 
plants were supposed to cure wounds made by the bite of that reptile. 

2. Lunewort (Pulmondria).—Calyx tubular, 5-cleft ; corolla funnel- 
shaped, its throat naked ; stamens enclosed within the corolla ; filaments very 
short. Name from the Latin pulmo, the lungs, from its ancient use in 
pulmonary affections. 

3. GROMWELL (Lithospérmum).—Calyx deeply 5-cleft; corolla funnel- 
shaped, its throat naked, or with 5 minute scales; stamens enclosed within 


BORAGE TRIBE 253 


the corolla ; filaments short ; seeds stony. Name from the Greek lithos, a 
stone, and sperma, a seed, from its hard stone-like fruits. 

4, SMOOTH GROMWELL (Merténsia).—Calyx 5-cleft, half the length of the 
corolla; corolla funnel-shaped ; stamens protruded beyond the tube ; anthers 
2lobed at the base; style becoming longer after flowering. Named from 
F. C. Mertens, a German botanist. 

5. ScorPion GRASS (Myosdtis).—Calyx 5-cleft ; corolla salver-shaped, its 
lobes blunt, twisted when in bud, and its throat nearly closed by blunt 
scales. Name from the Greek mys, a mouse, ows, ofos, an ear, from the form 
of the hairy leaves. 

6. ALKANET (Anchisa).—Calyx deeply 5-cleft ; corolla funnel- or salver- 
shaped, with a straight tube, its throat closed by prominent blunt scales. 
Name from the Greek enchewo, to dye, from the use of the roots in dyeing, 

7. Bucioss (Lycopsis).—Calyx deeply 5-cleft ; corolla funnel-shaped, with 
a bent tube, its throat closed by prominent blunt scales. Name from lukos, a 
wolf, and opsis, a face, from a fancied resemblance in the flower to the face of 
a wolf. Included by some authors. in Anchusa. 

8. CoMFREY (Simphytum).—Calyx deeply 5-cleft ; corolla bell-shaped, 
closed with 5 awl-shaped scales. Name from the Greek symphyo, to unite, 
from its supposed healing qualities. 

9. BoraGE (Bordgo).—Calyx deeply 5-cleft; corolla wheel-shaped, its 
throat closed with 5 short, erect, notched scales ; stamens forked. Name, a 
corruption of corago, for cor, the heart, and ago, to bring, because it was sup- 
posed to give courage. 

10. MAapwort (Aspertigo).—Calyx 5-cleft, with alternate smaller teeth ; 
corolla funnel-shaped with rounded scales in the throat. Name from the 
Latin asper, rough, from the asperities of the leaves. 

11. Hounn’s TonGuE (Cynoglossum).—Calyx 5-cleft; corolla funnel- 
shaped, with a short tube, its mouth closed by prominent blunt scales ; nuts 
flattened, prickly. Name from the Greek kyon, a dog, and glossa, a tongue, 
from the form of the leaves. 


1. Virer’s BucLoss (Hchium). 


1. Common Viper’s Bugloss (L. vulgdre).—Stem herbaceous, with- 
out branches, rough with prickly bristles arising from tubercles; leaves 
narrow, tapering, and bristly ; flowers in lateral spikes ; stamens longer than. 
the corolla; root spindle-shaped ; biennial. All lovers of wild flowers hail 
with delight the sprays of bells which stand on the speckled and rough stem 
of the Viper’s Bugloss in the months of June and July. Most stately, most 
brilliant of wild flowers, it rises to the height of two or three feet, having, 
when in a luxuriant condition, a spike of cymes more than a foot long. The 
colour of these bells varies from the richest and most intense violet-purple 
to a pale blue, or to bluish-pink, and now and then they are white, sometimes 
pure as snow, but more often having just such faint tint of blue as serves to 
remind us that the white flower is but a variety of the original blue blossom. 
The richly-honeyed flowers are great favourites with many insects, and owing 
to the fact that the stamens mature before the style, these by carrying pollen 
from older to younger flowers effect cross-fertilization, 


254 BORAGINEZE 


Many botanists have agreed with the remark of the late Mr. Loudon, 
that this is the most beautiful of all the lovely wild flowers which 
our country can boast. There will always, however, be a difference of 
opinion in matters like these ; and so long as early memories can find their 
sway in the heart of man, various flowers will be regarded as the loveliest. 
Some verses which Mary Isabella Tomkins has written for our volume in 
praise of flowers will, however, find a response in the breasts of all who 
love them :— 


‘A song of praise—in praise of flowers, from one who loves them well, 
And joys to see them springing free in many a lonesome dell ! 
Sweet are they, sweet as childhood’s smiles, welcome as boyhood’s mirth, 
The fairest, aye, and brightest things yet found upon the earth. 


“‘T care not cultured flowers to seek ; the simple and the mean, 
The star-like daisy at my feet, the green grass stems between, 
Is quite enough to stir my heart, and wake my humble powers, 
To celebrate right gratefully God’s goodly gift of flowers. 


‘<They tell of one* who wander’d in a desert drear and lone, 
Heart-sick and weary with.long toil, uncheer’d by friendly tone ; 
With nought of comfort in his heart, nor hope he could descry, 
And strong the evil thought within, to murmur and to die. 


‘When, lo, a tiny flower he saw, the capsule of a moss 
That clothed a rock, flung carelessly his very path across : 
Strange was the transport that it caused—his waken’d heart rose free, — 
‘The God who makes yon little flower, will surely care for me.’ 


‘*Oh flowers, pleasant flowers, your beauty and your grace 
Art strives in vain to imitate, defeated in the race ; 
Fit playthings ye for childhood’s years, fit gems for ladies’ bowers, 
Right gratefully, right lovingly, I sing the gift of flowers.” 

The plant grows most frequently on banks, chalky hills, or sea-cliffs ; but 
it also, in Cambridgeshire and some other counties, grows among the corn. 
We have looked on its luxuriance in the corn-fields of that county, where it 
rises to a great height, but we never saw it superior in size, or equal in rich- 
ness of hue, to the plant as it grows on the cliffs of Dover. It is there in 
great profusion, often covering large masses of the chalky soil. We have 
gathered from these cliffs specimens three feet and a half high, with the 
blossoms occupying a foot and a half of its upper portion. The spotted stem 
indicated to the men of other times that the Bugloss had been especially 
created to cure the bites of the speckled viper ; and its seeds, shaped as they 
fancied like a viper’s head, confirmed the promise of the stem. The flowers 
were considered cordial and refreshing, and, according to Parkinson, they 
were mingled with that of the borage, and were candied by gentlewomen into 
comfits. The plant grows in our country on sandy as well as on chalk or 
limestone soils; and Dr. Asa Gray, in his “ Notes of a Botanical Excursion 
to the Mountains of Carolina,” found that it had introduced itself in the 
extensive valley of Virginia most abundantly, along with another plant 
which is often its companion in Britain, the wild marjoram. “From the 
moment we entered the valley,” says this writer, “we observed such immense 
quantities of Echium vulgare, that we were no longer surprised at the doubt 
expressed by Dr. Pursh, whether it were really an introduced plant. This 
‘wild foreign weed,’ as Darlington, agriculturally speaking, terms this showy 
plant, is occasionally seen along the roadside in the Northern States ; but here, 


* Mungo Park. 


1 COMMON VIPERS BUGLOSS 3 COMMON LUNGWORT 
Echium vulgare Polmonaria officinalis 
ra PURPLE FLOWERED B + NARROW LEAVED L 
E.violaceum P. angustitoha 


Pl, 146. 


BORAGE TRIBE 255 


for the distance of more than a hundred miles, it has taken complete possession 
even of many cultivated fields, especially where the limestone approaches the 
surface, presenting a broad expanse of brilliant blue. It is surprising that 
the farmers should allow a biennial like this completely to overrun the land.” 

The word Bugloss is from the Greek bous, an ox, and glossa, a tongue, 
suggested by the shape of the leaves. The French call this plant La viperine. 
It is the Natterkopf of the German ; the Slangekruid of the Dutch ; the Echio 
of the Italians, and the Rumian of the Russians. The Spaniards term it 
Hierba de la vibora. 

2. Purple-flowered Viper’s Bugloss (H. violdcewm).—Stem herba- 
ceous, branched, downy, and having hairs rising from minute tubercles ; 
root-leaves oblong, stalked, upper ones oblong, heart-shaped, somewhat 
clasping ; spikes of flowers long; stamens scarcely longer than the corolla ; 
biennial. This handsome plant is very distinct from our common Viper’s 
Bugloss. Its flowers, which are of rich violet-blue, expand in July ; their 
stamens are of unequal length, some being very much longer than others : 
the root is of reddish colour. The plant is abundant in the sandy soils of 
Jersey, and also in parts of Cornwall. It is also known as £. plantaginewm, 
on account of its plantain-like leaves. 


2. Lunewort (Pulmondria). 


1. Common Lungwort (LP. officinalis). — Root-leaves egg-shaped, 
roundish, somewhat heart-shaped, stalked, upper leaves oblong and sessile ; 
perennial. ‘This is a rare plant of woods and thickets, and usually an outcast 
of gardens, though probably naturalized in some places. It is a common 
flower of the garden in spring, having its large leaves marked conspicuously 
with white spots. Its stem is about a foot high, and the whole plant is 
more or less covered with short hairs. The young buds are of a pink colour, 
and in May they expand into the violet-blue flowers, which, growing in a 
cluster somewhat resembling the cowslip, induced our fathers to call the 
plant either Bugloss Cowslip or Jerusalem Cowslip The resemblance of the 
spotted leaf to the lungs when under disease in all probability procured for 
the plant its familiar name of Lungwort, which is synonymous nearly 
throughout Europe, the French calling this herb Pulmonaire ; the Spaniards, 
Pulmonaria ; the Italians, Polmonarie ; the Germans, Lungenkraut ; and the 
Dutch, Longekruad. 

Mr. Loudon justly remarks: “It must not be inferred, from English 
names of this sort having been applied to plants, either that Lungwort was * 
ever used in this country for the lungs, or liverwort for the liver. The truth 
is, that the old herbalists, or translators of the classical writers upon natural 
history, made English names after their Latin terminations, without inquiring 
whether such continued to be applicable or not: their less-informed suc- 
cessors had no difficulty in finding those virtues in the plants which were 
indicated by the names of the translators.” In this case the plant was, how- 
ever, extolled and used in this country, and doubtless also on the Continent, 
and it is still in villages believed to be good for the lungs, among the descend- 
ants of the “Simplers” of the olden times. Both the leaves and fruit 
of the plant yield, when newly gathered, a slight mucilage, destitute of odour, 


256 BORAGINEAL 


somewhat astringent in flavour, and believed to be a good demulcent. It is 
not, however, of any service, except as a soothing and cooling drink, its 
refrigerant properties being due to the nitre contained by this, as well as by 
the borage and other allied plants. So much of this salt is found in the 
Lungwort, that when burnt it yields one-seventh of its weight in ashes. In 
the north of Europe it is commonly boiled for the table, and according to 
John Ray, it was formerly thus used in Scotland. Some of the garden 
species of Pulmonaria are very pretty. Such is the Virginian Lungwort 
(P. virginica), which in dry springs is a very ornamental plant, and which is 
by some writers considered but a variety of this species. It is not a 
native of these islands, but has had a place in our gardens for so long that 
early escapes have got thoroughly naturalized in a few of our woods and 
copses. 

2. Narrow-leaved Lungwort (P. angustifélia).—Leaves all lanceolate, 
upper ones sessile, lower ones stalked; perennial. This is a rare plant also 
of woods and thickets, and apparently truly wild. It has been found in 
Hampshire and Dorset, and is distinguished from the Common Lungwort by 
its taller stem, and its greater degree of down, as well as by the form of the 
leaves, which are also generally free from white spots. It is not, however, 
very distinct from the former plant. Its flowers are purple, and its buds 
pink ; and it is in blossom from March to June. 


3. GROMWELL (Lithospérmum). 


1. Common Gromwell (L. officindle).—Stem erect, very much branched ; 
leaves broadly lanceolate, acute, nerved, rough above, with bristles closely 
pressed to the surface, hairy beneath ; tube of the corolla as long as the calyx ; 
perennial. This plant would have little to interest the wanderer in the fields 
who noticed only the hue and fragrance of flowers. It grows on the rubbish- 
heap, or on dry banks, often among the goose-foots, the dog’s mercury, and 
other unattractive plants, and is in England very frequent, though rare in 
Scotland. The stem is a foot or a foot and a half high, the leaves very rough, 
the flowers small, scentless, and of a pale dingy yellow, expanding in June. 
But this dulllooking plant is very interesting to the botanist, from the 
singular stony covering of its seeds. These little nut-like fruits are at first of 
a dull greenish-white, but afterwards become of a greyish colour, slightly tinged 
with brown, and are bright and glossy like porcelain, and so hard that it is 
difficult to break them. This membrane, when analyzed, is found to contain 
a large quantity of flinty material, making the nut like a little stone. Hence 
it was called by early French writers Herbe aux perles ; hence also its botanic 
and English names, the latter being from the Celtic graun, a seed, and mil, a 
stone. One or other species of the Gromwells is known pretty well through- 
out Europe. In France, the plant is commonly called Le Grenil ; the Spaniards 
term it Lithosperma ; and both the Germans and Dutch have a reference to its 
stony fruits in their names of Steznswme and Steenzaad. In winter, when the 
green portion of the plant has died away, the woody part of the stem and 
branches remains, and is decked with the pearl-like seeds, presenting a most 
singular appearance. 

2. Corn Gromwell, or Bastard Alkanet (L. arvénse).—Stem erect, 


i COMMON GROMWELL 3 CREEPING GROMWELL 


Lithospermum officinale L, purpureo ceruleum 
2, CORN GROMWELL, 4: SEA SIDE SMOOTH GROMWELIL 
L. arvense Loamaritimum 


Pl, 147. 


ee, 


vi ay fuai a 
iis ‘ hy ha 
me Wei 

at 


BORAGE TRIBE 257 


branched ; leaves lanceolate, acute, hairy; calyx a little shorter than the 
corolla; annual. This species occurs in corn-fields and on waste ground, 
bearing white flowers in May and June. Its roots, which are of a bright red 
colour, will impart that tint to linen or paper. The plant is a native of 
Europe, Asia, Africa, and some parts of America. The country girls in the 
north of Sweden give, on festive days, a brighter tint to their cheeks by a 
rouge made from its roots. 

3. Creeping or Purple Gromwell (L. pirpureo-cerilewm).—Barren 
stems prostrate ; leaves lanceolate and acute ; tube of the corolla much longer 
than the calyx; perennial. This species is easily distinguished from the 
others by the large, handsome bright blue flowers, which, in June and July, 
grow on its erect flowering stems. It is a very rare plant of chalky soils, 
found in thickets near Greenhithe, in Kent, about Mary Church, Devon, and 
in the woods around Cheddar, in Somersetshire, where it grows plentifully 
over a large extent of soil. The nuts are highly polished, and of a most 
pearly white hue, and somewhat wrinkled. 


4. SMOOTH GROMWELL (Merténsia). 


Sea-side Mertensia (J/. maritima).—Stem prostrate, branched ; leaves 
egg-shaped, acute, rough, with hard dots, fleshy, and glaucous ; nuts smooth ; 
perennial. This is a rare plant on the English coast, growing only on our 
western shores. It occurs occasionally, also, among the pebbles or sand of 
some parts of the Welsh coast ; but the northern and western shores of Scot- 
land are the places where it may be sought with most success. Dr. Johnston, 
in his “ Flora of Berwick,” says, “It grew, in the time of Ray, at Scammerston 
Mill, between the Salt-pans and Berwick ; but we believe it will now be sought 
for in vain.” The learned Sir Andrew Balfour had previously described it as 
existing there: there can be no doubt, therefore, that this beautiful plant 
really once adorned that spot. Dr. Walker, referring to this plant, says that 
it is found flowering in July at Icolmkill, and that it is very frequent up 
the stony beach of most of the Western Islands, where it highly ornaments 
the shores, not only by its lovely flowers, but by the bright sea-green foliage. 
It was considered by Dillenius to be the most beautiful of all British flowers. 
It was observed by Linnzus to be sometimes annual, and in other cases 
perennial ; but on the shores of the Hebrides it appears to be constantly 
biennial. Upon the coast of Iceland, also, where the plant occurs sometimes . 
in great beauty, it is probably an annual plant ; and in a warmer climate than 
that of Britain, it would probably prove a perennial. 

The flowers of this handsome Smooth Gromwell are in racemes of bright 
purplish blue colour, with small yellow raised dots in the throat of the 
corolla. The stems and foliage are wholly covered with whitish-green powdery 
bloom ; the leaves are fleshy, and without bristles; and when the bloom is 
rubbed away, the hard dots appear, which become whiter and more apparent 
as the plant withers, and which in the herbarium are white and hard like 
little stones on the dark, almost black, remains of the leaves. The flavour of 
the leaves resembles that of oysters. 


i——oo 


258 BORAGINEA 


5. SCORPION-GRASS (Jyosdtis). 
* Hairs on the calyx, all straight, and closely pressed to the surface. 


1, Creeping Water Scorpion-grass, or Forget-me-not (J/. palustris). 
—Calyx cleft to about a third of its length, open when in fruit ; teeth short, 
triangular ; limb of the corolla flat, longer than the tube ; style about as long 
as the calyx ; stem angular ; leaves somewhat blunt ; root creeping. The pale 
but bright blue enamel-like flowers of this plant often stand up among the 
rich green leaves, which form masses on the borders of our rivers and stream- 
lets, or grow partly under their crystal waters. Beautiful, indeed, are the 
little islets on the streams from June to August, when the grasses and sedges 
seem so much the greener from the refreshing influences of the moisture, and 
bright flowers mingle among them. Mr. Noel well describes such places :— 


‘* Swift dragon-flies with their gauzy wings 
Flit glistening to and fro ; 
And murmuring hosts of moving things 
O’er the waters gleam and glow: 


‘«There are spots where nestle wild-flowers small, 
With many a mingling gleam ; 
Where the broad flag waves, and the bulrush tall 
Nods still to the thrusting stream. 


‘‘The Forget-me-not on the water’s edge 
Reveals her lovely hue ; 
Where the broken bank beneath the sedge 
Is embroider’d with her blue.” 


The flowers of this plant are among the largest and most beautiful of the 
species, though they are not quite so large as those of the Rock Scorpion- 
grass. They have a yellow eye, and a small white ray at the base of each 
segment ; the stem is about a foot high, and both that and the leaves are of 
uniform bright green, the stem being more or less downy, or sometimes quite 
smooth. The little buds, which before expansion are pink, and form a small 
coil at the top of the flower-stalk, gave to this and the rest of the genus the 
name of Scorpion-grass: this form of cyme being also known as the scorpioid 
cyme, the curl having suggested the tail of a scorpion. The legend to which 
it owes its other name, as given by Mills, in his “Origin of Chivalry,” is 
well known, as is the different story by Miss Strickland ; yet our account 
of the flower would be incomplete were we to omit their repetition. Accord- 
ing to the former writer, a knight was wandering by a stream with the 
lady whom he loved, the music of his words according well to the music of 
its tune. The maiden, glancing into the clear waters, saw the enamelled blue 
flowers, and wished to possessthem. They must have grown at some distance 
from the shore, probably ona little islet in mid-stream, or on the farther bank ; 
and, as it is said that woman loves best that which is most hard to come at, 
this circumstance may have added to her desire. The hapless man, plunging 
into the stream to gather them, was borne away by the current, but, making 
one last effort, he threw the flowers on the shore, exclaiming, “Forget me 
not!” and sank beneath the waters. It would be hard to criticise too 
minutely the touching tale, which is current throughout Europe, and which 
Bishop Mant has pleasantly told in verse, concluding with these lines :— 


1 


3 


CREEPING WATER SCORPION GRASS 5 
Myosotis repens 

C.W.S.G.OR FORGET ME NOT 6 
M palustris 

TUFTED WATER S.G HA 
M . cespitoga 

ROG Hs Ss iG. 8 


M. alpestris 


Pl, 148. 


UPRIGHT 
M... sylvatic a 
1D ME OY Sy ONG, 
M. arvensis 
EARLY FIELD -S.G 
M col | ima 
YELLOW & BLUE S.G 


WOGD S.G 


M versicolor 


» 


nih hfe iain, ca ‘ 

dy a fo ana ee a Fes Oa te 
; ; aii Sh bei Na Kel oy 
y : ; y 


BORAGE TRIBE 259 


‘* Yor the lady fair of the Knight so true 
Still remember’d his hapless lot ; 
And she cherish’d the flower of brilliant hue, 
And she braided her hair with the blossoms blue, 
And she call’d it, ‘ Forget me not.’” 


Miss Strickland’s narrative of the origin of the name 1s almost as 
interesting as this, and we must confess to believing it more probable. Henry 
of Lancaster, she considers, was the first who gave to the Forget-me-not its 
mblematic and poetic meaning, by uniting it, at the period of his exile, one 
his collar of S S with the initial letter of his mot or watchword, Sowveigne-vous 
de moi. Henry exchanged this token of good-will and remembrance with his 
hostess, who was at that time the wife of the Duke of Bretagne. Mrs. Abdy 
has written some verses for our volume, embodying this narrative :— 


‘* Forget-me-not—thou flower to poets dear, 
They ever place thee in a sylvan scene, 
Amid the reeds that fringe the streamlets clear, 
Or on smooth meadow banks of vernal green: 
Few bear in mind that regal pride and power 
Were once connected with the simple flower. 
‘For me, the page of History I scan, 
And give to thee, sweet flower, distinction due ; 
Henry of Lancaster, a banish’d man, 
Arises in his exile to my view, 
Condemn’d by royal Richard's stern command 
Awhile to quit his home and native land. 


‘* Yet were his daring hopes unchanged, unquell’d ; 
Eager the ruler of our realm to be, 
Counsel with friends and followers he held 
In secrecy :—his token-flower was thee ; 
Link’d with a watchword, meet for court or cot, 
The touching, deep appeal, Forget me not. 


‘Time pass’d ; again he sought his native land, 
Not, as of old, oppress’d by Fortune’s frown ; 
*Mid bold adherents, a devoted band, 
He fought—and won the prize of England’s crown, 
A crown in part attain’d, sweet flower, through thee 
By thy mute spell, thy mystic agency. 
‘*Those times are gone—and now the passing throng 
Connect thee with the sighs of those who part, 
With the sweet burden of a plaintive song, 
With the soft breathings of a loving heart: 
Nor deem that once thy lowly blossom met 
The favour of a proud Plantagenet ! 
‘*Perchance ’tis better thus :—Earth’s lofty things— 
The laurel trophy gain’d in battle-strite, 
The pomp of courts, the pageantry of kings— 
Pervade not our familiar walks of life ; 
But Love and Truth diffuse their gentle sway 
O’er the calm course of each returning day. 
**T will not number thee with regal flowers, — 
No, still remain in meek and humble grace, 
A dweller in green vales and leafy bowers, 
A silent witness of the fond embrace, 
When friends or lovers part in some lone spot, 
And sigh in faltering tones, ‘ Forget me not.’” 


The plant is as much prized all over the Continent as in this kingdom, 
and is generally regarded throughout Europe as the Forget-me-not. The 
Danes call it Forgjact mij ¢j. Coleridge remarks of it, “It has the same name, 

33—2 


260 BORAGINEAL 


Vergissmeinnicht, all over the empire of Germany, and I believe in Denmark 
and Sweden,” though several of its continental names, like ours, refer to 
its coiled buds, or to the leaf which gives it the name of Mouse-ear. Thus, 
the French call it Scorpionne, or sometimes Grémillet, and Oreille de Rat ; the 
Italians, Orecchio di topa; the Spaniards, Miosota. The German plants. the 
flower about the tombs; the Frenchman portrays the cluster on paper, and 
writes beneath the bouquet, Ne m’oublicz pas ; and though a wild flower in 
France, as in our country, yet little pots of its blossoms are often to be seen 
in the flower-markets of Paris, as well as small gathered bouquets, which are 
sold for the purpose of making the gift of love or friendship. 

Coleridge laments that the flower should pass away so early, though it 
often lingers till August :— 


‘The tedded hay, the first-fruits of the soil, 
The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in our fields, 
Show Summer gone ere come. The foxglove tall 
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust, 
Or when it bends beneath the up springing lark, 
Or mountain finch alighting. And the rose, 
In vain the darling of successful love, 
Stands like some boasted beauty of past years, 
The thorns remaining and the flowers al! gone. 
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk 
By rivulet or spring, or wet road-side, 
That blue and bright-eyed flow’ret of the brook, 
Hope’s gentle gem! the sweet Forget-me-not.” 


Doubtless, as Professor Burnett remarks, the flower owes some of its 
popularity to its familiar name, but it probably owed that name, too, to its 
modest loveliness. Though it is never so handsome or luxuriant when in 
dry places, yet it will sometimes thrive for a time in gardens, and may be 
cultivated in pots. It is increased by separating the roots, and when planted 
on a moist free earth, it will blossom well, and may be used for a season to 
adorn our houses, or may serve for the gentle usages of sentiment. 

In the Netherlands this Myosotis is often made into a syrup, and given as 
a remedy in pulmonary affections ; but it can be of little service. It is said 
that a decoction of its juices hardens steel; and that if edged tools of that 
metal be made red-hot, and then quenched in the juice or decoction of this 
plant, and this be repeated for some hours, the steel will become so hard as 
even to cutiron or stone; but we have not been able to verify this statement. 

2. Creeping Water Scorpion-grass (I. répens).—Calyx cleft to 
about the middle, open when in fruit ; teeth narrow, lanceolate, and acute ; 
limb of the corolla flat, longer than the tube; style as long as the calyx ; 
down of the stem spreading ; stem slightly angular ; leaves somewhat acute ; 
perennial. This plant, which grows in boggy places, is by some botanists 
thought to be a sub-species of the last. It has pale-blue flowers in leafy 
clusters, from June to August. 

3. Tufted Water Scorpion-grass (I. cwspitésa).—Calyx open when 
in fruit; teeth narrow, lanceolate, bluntish; limb of the corolla equalling 
the tube; stem round, with its down closely pressed to the surface ; leaves 
usually blunt; annual or biennial. This plant occurs in many watery places, 
bearing in May and June clusters of bright blue flowers, which vary in size, 


BORAGE TRIBE 261 


but are usually smaller than in the preceding species. The name for this 
species is not a good one; for though it grows in a crowded manner, it is 
never really tufted. 


* * Hairs on the calyx tube spreading. 


4, Upright Wood Scorpion-grass (M._ sylvdtica).—Calyx with 
spreading curved bristles, deeply 5-cleft, divided more than half way down, 
closed when in fruit ; limb of the corolla flat, longer than the tube; style 
nearly as long as the calyx ; leaves oblong, lanceolate, stalks of the lower 
leaves dilated ; perennial. This is a rare species, of dry, shady places, chiefly 
in the north of England and Lowlands of Scotland, though found occasionally 
in Kent and other counties. It has large, handsome blue flowers, from May 
to August. 

5. Rock Scorpion-grass (MM. alpéstris).—Calyx deeply 5-cleft, open 
when in fruit ; limb of the corolla flat, longer than the tube ; leaves oblong, 
lanceolate, those of the root on long stalks; perennial. This beautiful species 
is a mountain plant, growing at a great elevation on the Breadalbane 
mountains. Mr. Backhouse also found it in great abundance on the high 
limestone at the east end of Mickle Fell in Teesdale, flowering in June. It 
has large handsome leaves, and most lovely large flowers of pale but bright 
blue, which Mr. Babington says are sweet-scented in the evening. They are 
the handsomest of all our native species, and grow at first in such dense 
clusters as almost to form heads, though they afterwards become racemed. 
They expand in August and September, on a stem about half a foot high. 
Many writers consider this species an Alpine form of J. sylvatica. 

6. Field Scorpion-grass (JM. arvénsis).—Calyx half 5-cleft, closed 
when in fruit, with curved bristles ; limb of the corolla concave, equalling the 
tube ; style very short ; flowers on short stalks in racemes ; leaves oblong, 
acute, lower ones somewhat egg-shaped and blunt ; annual or biennial. This 
is the most frequent of all the species, and, like all the others, it has the 
hairy leaves which suggested the name of the genus. It is in blossom from 
June till September, and its brilliant small sapphire blossoms are often given 
in country places in little bouquets by those who consider it the forget-me- 
not. ‘The stem varies from six inches to a foot and a half in height, and the 
whole plant is rough with spreading bristles. In very shady places its 
flowers are sometimes much larger, when it is often mistaken for I. sylvatica. 
It is, like the other species, somewhat mucilaginous and astringent; and in 
times when such plants were used either for pulmonary affections or for 
external emollient applications, this species, as being the most common, was 
very generally selected for use in inflammatory disorders. Country people 
in Kent still make a decoction of its leaves for curing coughs, 

7. Early Field Scorpion-grass (Jf. collina).—Calyx covered with 
spreading, hooked bristles, open when in fruit ; limb of the corolla concave, 
shorter than the tube ; leaves oblong and blunt, lower ones inversely egg- 
shaped, their hairs straight ; annual, 

This pretty but small plant is not uncommon in April and May, on dry 
banks, tops of cottages and walls, but is not large enough to attract the 
notice of any who are not observant of wild flowers. The whole plant rarely 


262 BORAGINEAA 


exceeds three inches in length ; the stems spread almost on the ground, and 
terminate in little clusters, with one solitary, distant flower in the axil of the 
upper leaf. The flowers are of uniform blue, the buds never tinged, as in 
most of the Scorpion-grasses, with pink. When the flowers first appear they 
are closely nestled among the leaves, but the stem shortly lengthens into 
clusters, and before June the plant has withered away. Mr. Bowman has 
remarked, that the flowers do not expand till, by the uncurling of the raceme, 
they are brought into a perpendicular position, but continue open till the 
next two or three above them are expanded. 

8. Yellow and Blue Scorpion-grass (M. versicolor).—Calyx with 
spreading, curved bristles, closed when in fruit ; cluster on a long, leafless 
stalk ; stalk of the fruit erect ; limb of the corolla shorter than the tube ; 
leaves narrow, oblong, somewhat acute, upper ones frequently opposite ; 
annual. This plant, which is not uncommon on banks and fields, often grows 
on a more moist soil than the last species, though sometimes, like it, on dry 
sunny places. It is a very distinct species, varying in height according to the 
soil, from three to six inches, and blossoming in April and June. The stem is 
leafy below and naked above, and its little cluster is coiled up very closely while 
in bud, opening into most lovely little flowers, which are very singular as to 
colour, being at first yellow, then turning blue. It is interesting to notice 
how the calyx becomes converted into a seed-capsule, covered with hooked 
hairs, which catch in the fur of mammals, and so detach the calyx from the 
plant and disperse the highly-polished nutlets. This applies only to the 
terrestrial species ; those that grow in the water do not have the hairs of the 
calyx hooked, the seeds being efficiently distributed by water-carriage. 


6. ALKANET (Anchisa). 


1. Common Alkanet (4. officindlis).—Leaves lanceolate, rough and 
hairy: flowers in one-sided spikes ; bracts egg-shaped and pointed ; calyx 
segments longer than the tube. This is a rare plant of waste grounds. _ Its 
stem is one or two feet in height, and its deep purple flowers expand in June 
and July. Though so unfrequent in our country, this Alkanet shows its 
richly tinted flowers in abundance in the southern parts of France, in Ger- 
many, and Switzerland, where it is to be seen everywhere, on uncultivated 
fields, roadsides, and old walls. A large quantity of gum is contained by the 
roots, which when boiled yield a demulcent medicine, once very popular both . 
in this country and on the Continent. 

The roots of most of the Alkanets furnish some slight degree cf red colour- 
ing matter, but this abounds in the roots of the species called 4. tinctoria, 
which is the Common Alkanet, or Orcanette, used by druggists ; and the red 
colour obtained from them is employed for giving its hue to lip-salves, oil, and 
wax. It is also commonly extracted for imparting a colour to wine sold 
under the name of port, and also in staining corks. ‘This species is a native 
of Italy, Spain, and the south of France, and is also cultivated in the last- 
named country for various uses. Among the Romans the roots of the 
Alkanet were in great request in staining wool, previously to giving it that 
rich purple hue so prized in ancient Rome. The colouring matter of the 
Alkanets has been called by some chemists psewdo-alkanmin, and though found 


IGLOSS 


COMMON ALKANET 3 SMALL Bt i 
Anchusa officinalis Lycopsis arvensis 
2, EVERGREEN ALKANET, 4: COMMON COMFPREY 
Symphytim officinals 


A sempervirens 


5. TUBEROUS COMPREY 


S. tuberosum 


Pl. 149. 


BORAGE TRIBE 263 


in great abundance in the external part of the root, is almost absent from the 
internal portion. Beckmann says of it: ‘A solution of spermaceti in sul- 
phureous ether, tinged with Alkanet root, which solidifies at 50° F., and 
melts and boils with the heat of the hand, is supposed to be the substance 
which is used at Naples when the blood of St. Januarius melts spontaneously, 
and boils over the vessel which contains it.” The Common Alkanet is not a 
native, but it is frequent in our gardens, and probably in the few places in 
which it grows apparently wild, it originally escaped from cultivation. 

The bristles which cover the stem and leaves of our Common Alkanet are 
far more stiff and sharp in some of the other species. They arise from a 
minute stony base, which, by the aid of a lens, is seen to consist of a cluster 
of very hard cells of cellular tissue. These rough tubercles become in all the 
species more apparent when the plant grows older. 

2. Evergreen Alkanet (4. sempervirens).—Leaves egg-shaped, lower 
ones upon long stalks ; flower-stalks axillary ; flowers salver-shaped, in short 
spikes; perennial. This is a stout bristly plant, about one or two feet high. 
Its leaves are of rich deep-green colour, and the flowers, which expand in 
May and June, are large, and of an intense azure blue. It is a rare plant, 
sometimes found among ruins and by road-sides, where it doubtless in many 
cases originated from some neighbouring garden ; but though not generally 
considered as a wild plant, it appears to be truly naturalized in some parts of 
Yorkshire, and it is by no means unfrequent in hedges in Devonshire. The 
French call the Alkanet La Buglosse ; the Germans, Ochsenzung ; the Dutch, 
Ossetong ; the Italians, Ancusa. 


7. Bua oss (Lycopsis). 


Small Bugloss (L. arvénsis).—Leaves lanceolate, toothed, and wavy, very 
bristly ; calyx erect while in flower; annual. The leaves of this plant are of 
the richest dark-green hue, but so rough and hairy that the gatherer of wild 
flowers hesitates ere he takes it for his nosegay. The hairs or bristles stand 
on white, hard tubercles, very apparent in the older leaves, and the lower 
leaves are lengthened into stalks. The flowers, which grow in curved clusters, 
expand in June and July, are of the most brilliant blue, very small for the 
size of the foliage, and differing little from those of the Alkanet, except in the 
remarkable circumstance of having the tube of the corolla bent. The French 
call this plant Lycopside ; the Germans, Krummhals ; the Portuguese, Liden 
oxetunge ; andthe Dutch, Wolfschyn. This last, as well as the scientific name, 
has a reference to the fancied resemblance of this flower to the face or eye of a ° 
wolf; but he must have had a very active fancy to whose mind the 
resemblance was first suggested. 


8. COMFREY (Symphytum). 


1. Common Comfrey (S. officindle).—Leaves egg-shaped and lanceolate, 
tapering at the base, and running down the stem ; flowers drooping, in two- 
forked clusters ; root-stock branched, perennial. This plant, which is very 
common on the borders of rivers, is not likely to be overlooked by any 
rambler there. Not that the flowers of the Comfrey are at all showy, but 
the stem is two or three feet high, and branched, and it has large, strongly- 


264 BORAGINEA 


veined leaves, which run down into winged appendages to the stem, From 
May to August clusters of white, purple, pinkish, or greenish drooping bells 
may be seen upon the plant, but they are not to be gathered unwarily, on 
account of the bristles which beset both stem and foliage. The plant is often 
abundant on the river’s brink, for its brittle root extends itself widely, and is 
very tenacious of life, every little remnant of it sending up a young shoot 
above the soil. This circumstance renders the plant very troublesome in a 
garden. It is now chiefly to be found in the cottage garden, but it was very 
generally cultivated in former days, on account of its supposed vulnerary 
qualities, a property to which we find an allusion in several of its Continental 
names, as well as in our old one of Great Consound. The French call it 
Consoude ; the Italians, Consolida; the Spanish, Consuelda major ; the 
Germans, Beinwell ; and the Dutch, Smeerwortel. All parts of the plant, 
especially the roots, contain a large quantity of mucilage, so that the Comfrey 
is fitted for all the purposes to which we should apply the marsh mallow ; 
every part, too, is nutritive, and the roots have a sweetish flavour. The 
decoction of this herb was formerly used not only for “griefes of the lungs,” 
but for various other maladies, and it has also been used by dyers to extract 
the colouring matter from gum lac. The leaves are said by Dr, George John- 
ston to give a grateful flavour to cakes and panada, and to be, when boiled, 
an excellent vegetable ; they should be gathered while young, when they form 
a substitute for spinach ; the young shoots, blanched by being forced through 
heaps of earth, may be eaten like asparagus, which they resemble in flavour, 
though they are not so delicate as that vegetable. 

Professor James Buckman, who made many valuable observations on 
grasses and other plants, especially serviceable to the farmer, observes that 
some years since the Prickly Comfrey of the Caucasus (Symphytum asperrimum) 
was greatly recommended for cultivation as the green food of cattle, and that 
it soon grows to a great height in the garden. He adds, that while this plant 
was growing, he used sometimes to amuse himself by taking branches of it 
into the meadows to the cows, and that it was highly curious to see how 
immediately they surrounded him, and how eagerly they ate the plants; and 
Dr. Voelcker, who analysed this Comfrey, both in its fresh and dried states, 
declared it to be his opinion that it was very nutritious to these animals. 

Professor Buckman says: “On introducing the S. asperrimum to my 
botanical garden, it struck me that, notwithstanding the latter is known as a 
Caucasian species, which was introduced as a garden plant on account of the 
beautiful colour of its flower-bells, yet that the former scarcely presented 
those marked differences which should belong to species. I therefore deter- 
mined to plant some specimens of S. officinale, concluding that if I could get 
a plant from the waterside to grow in an upland district, remote from water, 
so great a change of circumstance would, at least, exert great influence upon 
its growth. Accordingly, a plant with white bells was introduced into the 
Botanic garden, which at once grew abundantly, and the following year was 
subdivided into several sets, which flowered; but this season the flowers 
became stained with a dull reddish-blue tinge, and each season great changes 
have gone on in this plant; so that, in fact, in the summer of 1853, it was 
scarcely distinguishable from the Prickly Comfrey.” Subsequent observations 


BORAGE TRIBE 265 


do not appear to have confirmed Professor Buckman’s views, and the two forms 
are still regarded as distinct species. They are found, however, to have 
exactly the same properties ; and as the wild Comfrey seems, when brought 
from its native river side, to improve and not to degenerate under culture, 
it may some day, as Professor Buckman believes, become a valuable addition 
to the plants now used as fodder. 

2. Tuberous Comfrey (S. tuberésum).—Stem scarcely branched ; leaves 
oblong, narrowed below ; stem-leaves lanceolate, upper ones generally in pairs, 
large, and running slightly down the stem; root-stock short, perennial. 
This species is common in Scotland, on the borders of rivers, and in shady 
woods, but is rare in England. It isa smaller and more slender plant than 
the preceding, and has yellowish-white flowers in June and July It differs 
in the character of the root-fibres, which are fleshy in the case of S. officinale, 
and slender in the present species. 


9. BoRAGE (Borage). 


Common Borage (Bb. officindlis). —Stem-leaves tapering below into 
stalks, eared at the base ; root-leaves inversely egg-shaped, narrowed below ; 
whole plant rough with whitish tubercled hairs; biennial. The Borage is a 
very handsome plant, when, from June to September, its brilliant blue flowers 
form terminal clusters. Its stem is about two feet high; both that and the 
flower-stalks often tinged with red, and, like the leaves, it is rough, with 
sharp tubercled bristles. The flowers are large, their azure petals varied by 
the prominent purplish-black anthers. The Borage may often be found near 
houses and in waste places, doubtless having in many cases escaped from the 
garden ; but although not indigenous, it seems quite naturalized on some 
spots. It is an old garden flower, and has a place in the border both on 
account of its blossoms and for its various uses. Bishop Mant says— 

**Or would you deign—as who that woos 
Boon Nature’s favours would refuse ?— 
The dusty pathway’s side to try, 

Or rubbish heap? With bright blue eye 
Your pains the bugloss will repay, 

And, famed for driving care away, 
Dipp’d in a broader brighter blue, 
Rough Borage.” 

But it would need the pen of one of those undoubting writers, the 
herbalists, properly to set forth the virtues for which this plant was- 
renowned. The adage, 


‘*T, Borage, always bring courage,” 
] b) A, oD Ons 


was received in all good faith by our ancestors, who deemed this plant one 
of the four “cordial flowers,” which most deserved their esteem for cheering 
the spirits; the others being the rose, violet, and alkanet. They put the 
Borage blossoms and young shoots in soups, pickled the tender leaves, or 
ate them in salad ; candied the bright azure petals into sweetmeats ; mingled 
them with wine, water, lemon, and sugar, into a beverage, yet liked by some, 
and still called by its old name of “cool tankard” ; and having ate or drank 
the Borage, went forth to work or to warfare with good hope of success. 
T1.— 34 


266 BORAGINEAL 


Bacon, referring to this plant, says, “If the leaf of Burrage be infused 
long it yieldeth forth but a raw substance of no virtue: therefore suppose 
if in the must of wine or wort of beer, while it worketh, before it be 
tunned, the Burrage stay a short time, and be often changed with fresh, it 
will make a sovereign drink for melancholy passion.” Pliny had long before 
said, that wine in which the plant was infused produced very exhilarating 
effects; and many writers think that the word borago is a corruption of 
corago ; from cor, the heart, ago, to bring. Whether the name of Borago was, 
however, originally applied to this plant, may be doubted. Beckmann, who 
has a learned disquisition on the subject, after remarking that since the 
fourteenth or fifteenth century it had been sown for its various uses in 
cooking, says, “This plant was not known to the ancients ; for the conjecture 
that it is what they called buglosswm is not very probable. As far as I have 
been able to learn, Nicholas Myrepsus, who lived in the beginning of the 
fourteenth century, is the first who uses the [Greek] name pourakion, which 
certainly means borago. But who knows whence this writer, who introduces 
in his work a great many new, inexplicable names, some of them formed from 
the Greek, Latin, or Italian, obtained that appellation? Some of the old 
botanists have conjectured that it is derived from the word corago, which 
Apuleius, whose period is uncertain, gives as a synonym of buglossum. Some 
think that the reading in Apuleius ought to be borago, and others assert that 
corago is the true name, and arose from the quality which the plant has of 
strengthening the heart ; consequently we ought properly to read corago, and 
not borago. It is probable that our forefathers, under the impression that 
their Borage was the buglossum of the ancients, and therefore had the 
property of strengthening the heart, threw the flowers into wine, that their 
spirits might by these means be more enlivened. Our Borage is certainly 
a foreign plant, and Cesalpinus says that it was brought from other countries 
into Italy. Linneus positively states that it first came from Aleppo , but I 
have not yet been able to find on what authority this assertion was founded. 
At present, at least in the German cookery, Borage is no longer used ” 

The stems contain nitre, and the whole plant readily gives its flavour 
even to cold water. The French call the plant bourrache ; the Germans, 
Borago, the Dutch, Bernagie ; the Italians, Borragine ; and the Spaniards, 
Lorraja 


10. Mapwort (Asperigo). 


German Madwort (4. prociimbens).—Stems angular, prostrate, rough 
with prickles ; leaves oblong, somewhat lanceolate ; lower ones stalked. This 
little prostrate annual plant is less frequent in Britain than in most European 
countries ; for though bearing the name of German Madwort, it is found 
almost all over Europe, from Lapland to the Mediterranean. It grows on 
waste places, chiefly in the north of this kingdom, as in various parts of 
Durham and Northumberland ; but it is an introduced plant, and it occurs 
very sparingly. It is peculiarly rough in all its parts, its angular stems 
being thickly set with hooked prickles. Sometimes the leaves are solitary, 
or they are opposite, or they grow in little tufts. The solitary, small, but 
bright flowers appear in June and July, and peep from the axils of the upper, 


1 COMMON BORAGE 3 COMMON HOUNDS TONGUE 


Borago officimalis Cynoélossum officimale 
GERMAN MADWORT 4. GREEN LEAVED HOUNDS TONGUE 
Asperugo procumbens C sylvaticum 


Pl, 150, 


BORAGE TRIBE 267 


leaves. From its name of Madwort we might infer that it was a fancied 
remedy for mental disease ; it is also one of several of our wild flowers called 
in some country places bugloss. After the flowers have been fertilized the 
five-lobed calyx increases greatly in size, and becomes transformed into two 
triangular lobes with jagged edges. These lobes are applied to each other, 
face to face, and so protect the ripening seeds within. The French call it 
Porte-feuille ; the Germans term it Scharfkraut ; the Dutch, Scherpkruid ; the 
Italians, Asperugine. It is the Rapelle of the Danes, and the Ormigen of the 
Swedes. 


11. HOUND’S-TONGUE (Cynogléssum). 


1. Common Hound’s-tongue (. officindle).—Lower leaves elliptical, 
stalked, covered with down ; upper ones lanceolate, narrowing below, some- 
what heart-shaped, half clasping ; flowers in racemes, without bracts; biennial. 
The flowers of the Hound’s-tongue are of most peculiar tint—a tint showed 
by no other native blossom. They expand from June to August, and are of 
dull reddish-purple, of the shade commonly called claret colour ; the petals 
veined. The fruits which succeed them are very singular in form, very rough ; 
the nuts are flattened in front, and surrounded by a thickened prominent 
margin, and the prickles so firm and thick that they are like burs. The 
whole plant has a strong and disagreeable odour, like that of mice. 

We find that this flower has, in several European countries, a name 
synonymous with ours. It is the Hundizunge of the Germans, and the 
Hondstong of the Dutch; while the Portuguese call it Lingua de Cao ; the 
Italians term it Cinoglossa, and the French Cynoglosse. The whole plant is 
very soft and downy, of an unvarying greyish-green colour, and the form and 
texture of the leaf must have originated its familiar names. Mizaldus said 
that if a portion of the plant were laid beneath the feet, it would prevent 
dogs from barking at the wearer ; but so far as we have been able to discover, 
dogs seem quite unconscious of its presence. It was formerly thought 
efficacious in many disorders, and the leaves were especially directed to be 
applied to the wound made by the teeth of a mad dog. Culpepper said of 
the plant, “It is called Hound’s-tongue because it ties the tongues of hounds ; 
whether true or not, I never tried, yet I cured the biting of a mad dog with 
this only medicine.” A decoction of the roots, as well as an outward 
application of them, is recommended by some modern physicians in cases of 
enlargement of the joints. Professor Lindley remarks that some writers 
consider the leaves narcotic. They are somewhat bitter in flavour, and ~ 
produce a fat, strongly-scented oil. Sir Joseph Hooker, who found two 
species of the Cynoglossum on the Himalaya Mountains, observed that one 
kind was there used as a pot-herb. 

Our common Hound’s-tongue is sometimes found in a less downy condition 
than ordinary. It is an herbaceous plant, with a stem about one or two feet 
high. It grows by road-sides and on waste places ; and though not rare, yet 
it is not very frequent. 

2. Green-leaved Hound’s-tongue (C. sylvdticwm). — Stem-leaves 
lanceolate, broad at the base, sessile, slightly hairy, and rough, especially 
beneath ; upper ones slightly narrowed below, clasping ; root-leaves on long 

34—2 


268 SOLANEAR 


stalks ; biennial. This species may easily be distinguished from the last 
by its bright-tinted foliage, which is more or less shining, and free from soft 
down, though often very rough. It is besides of different form. The flowers 
are of reddish colour, changing to blue, and the seeds are without the margin, 
which is so prominent in those of the other species. The Green-leaved 
Hound’s-tongue is a rare plant, found in shady situations by road-sides, in 
the middle and south-east of England, and in the neighbourhood of Dublin. 
Its flowers are in racemes, without bracts, expanding in June and July. It 
is also known as C. montanum. 


Order LIX. SOLANEA—NIGHTSHADE TRIBE. 


Calyx 5-, rarely 4-cleft, inferior ; corolla 5-, or rarely 4-cleft, equal or 
nearly so, imbricate or plaited when in bud ; stamens the same in number as 
the divisions of the corolla, and alternate with them; anthers bursting 
lengthwise, or opening by pores; ovary 1-, 2-, or 4-celled; style 1; stigma 
rarely lobed ; fruit a 1-, 2-, or 4-celled capsule or berry ; seeds numerous. 
This large and important order consists of herbs or shrubs. Linneus gave 
to it the name of Luride, from the dull, lurid appearance of the flowers of 
many of the plants, which he regarded as indicative of their noxious properties. 
They are acrid and narcotic, several most deadly poisons being found among 
them, as the Nightshade, Mandrake, Thorn-apple, and others ; but several 
are useful, such as the Tomato, now so largely grown and eaten in this 
country ; the Capsicums, which furnish Chillies and Cayenne-pepper ; and in 
this order is included that most important article of food, the Potato. The 
species are more abundant in the tropics than elsewhere ; but the plants 
inhabit most regions of the globe except the coldest. 

1. THORN-APPLE (Datdéra).—Calyx tubular, falling early ; corolla funnel- 
shaped, angular, plaited; anthers opening lengthwise; stigma 2-lobed ; 
capsule incompletely 4-celled, 4-valved. Name from its Arabic appellation, 
Tatérah. 

2. HENBANE (Hyoscyamus).—Corolla funnel-shaped, with 5 unequal lobes; 
capsule 2-celled, closed by a lid. Name from the Greek hys, hyos, a hog, and 
kyamos, a bean, from the form of the fruit. 

3. NIGHTSHADE (Soldnum).—Corolla wheel-shaped, 5-cleft, the segments 
spreading or reflexed; anthers opening by two pores at the summit; berry 
roundish, with two or more cells. Name of doubtful origin. 

4. DwALE (Atropa).—Corolla bell-shaped, with 5 equal lobes; stamens 
distant ; berry of 2 cells. Name from Atropos, one of the Fates, in allusion 


to its deadly properties. 


1. 'THORN-APPLE (Datura). 


Common Thorn-apple (D. straméniwm).— Herbaceous, leaves egg- 
shaped, unequally and deeply cut, smooth; capsule erect, egg-shaped and 
spiny ; annual. This plant, which is found, though rarely, on waste ground 
and rubbish heaps, is not a native. Its flowers are trumpet-shaped, large, 


NIGHTSHADE TRIBE 269 


white and erect, expanding from July to October. They are succeeded by 
the large prickly seed-vessel, which is curiously formed, being 2-celled, with 
each cell again divided by a partition ; so that the lower part seems 4-celled. 
Though naturalized in Britain, the plant is a native of America, and is in 
Virginia called Fire-weed, because it springs up readily in spots cleared by 
fire. It is also called St. James’-weed, from the abundance of its growth near 
Jamestown ; and the new settlers in that land having eaten it, experienced 
such extraordinary effects, that one of its common names indicates it as a 
plant peculiarly belonging to the Prince of Darkness, the originator of all 
evil. According to the accounts given by the old historians of Virginia, the 
new-comers finding this plant in spring, gathered some of the young and 
tender shoots, which they boiled for their meat ; and some of the soldiers sent 
to quell the disturbances there, ate plentifully of the vegetable. It seems to 
have produced a most vivacious sort of intoxication, in which the men who 
ate it committed the most wild extravagances ; and, according to the old 
historians, the influence of the plant remained eleven days, while upon their 
recovery, the victims of this delirium had forgotten all that had occurred. 
The love of the marvellous, so prevalent in those days, doubtless led to an 
exaggerated statement of these effects; but the plant is now well known to 
be a most powerful narcotic, which, previously to causing stupor, induces a 
state of wild delirium, in which the person who takes it laughs and talks 
incessantly. The hill tribes of India use the plant as a narcotic, and in some 
of the mountain villages the seeds are commonly infused in spirituous liquors, 
for the purpose of increasing their intoxicating properties. The narcotic and 
poisonous principles of the seeds have long been known and used for 
criminal purposes in some parts of the Continent, and they are said to be 
thus used in poisoning by the natives of the Indian Archipelago. In this 
country these seeds are rarely employed, and we should see nothing of their 
effects, did it not sometimes happen that children taste them accidentally, 
when spectral illusions more or less wild are induced. ‘The peculiar 
principle of the Thorn-apple is called by chemists daturin. It exists more or 
less in all the species, and its general action on the system is much like that 
of Henbane ; when taken internally it strongly dilates the pupil of the eye. 

Professor Johnston, in his remarks on the “ Narcotics we indulge in,” 
thus refers to this plant: ‘‘ When the Thorn-apple is smoked, as it is some- 
times in this country, by persons afflicted with certain forms of spasmodic 
asthma, an empyreumatic oil is produced, similar to that which is formed - 
during the burning of tobacco in the pipe of the smoker. Like the empy- 
reumatic oil of tobacco, also, it is very poisonous, so that the effect produced 
by the smoke of the Thorn-apple upon the system is made up of the joint 
influence of this poisonous oil and that of the poisonous daturin, which may 
come away with the smoke. Hence the smoking of Thorn-apple, as experi- 
ence has proved, is by no means unattended with danger.” 

The Red Thorn-apple (D. sanguinea), which grows on the slopes of the 
valleys of. the Andes, is called by the Indians Yerba de huacca, or Borachero. 
The Indians prepare a narcotic drink from this plant, and Von Tschudi 
describes its effects, which are doubtless very like those which would follow 
a similar use of the common species. Shortly after taking the beverage, 


270 SOLANEAt 


the Indian fell into a heavy stupor, sat with his eyes vacantly fixed on the 
ground, his mouth convulsively closed, and his nostrils dilated. In a short 
time the eyes rolled wildly, foam issued from his mouth, and at length he 
slept for several hours. He then awoke, and a crowd of eager listeners 
gathered around him as he related the details of his late vision, during which 
he affirmed he had had an interview with the spirits of his forefathers. 

Those human scourges, the Poisoners of India, now nearly extinct, used a 
species of Thorn-apple in their cruel practices. ‘The Poisoners,” says Sir 
Joseph Hooker, ‘all belong to one caste, of Pasie, or dealers in toddy ; they 
go singly or in gangs, haunting the travellers’ resting-places, where they drop 
half a rupee weight of pounded or whole Datura seeds into his food, producing 
a twenty-four hours’ intoxication, during which he is robbed, and left to 
recover, or sink under the stupefying effects of the narcotic.” One of them 
told this traveller that the Datura seed is gathered without ceremony, and at 
any time, place, or age of the plant. He was “a dirty, ill-conditioned 
fellow.” 

The seeds of the Thorn-apple are believed by some to have been used by 
the priests of the Delphic temple to procure the wild and frensied utterances 
of the oracle. According to Professor Lindley, those of D. sanguinea were cer- 
tainly used for a similar purpose in the Temple of the Sun at Sagomozo, 
which lies among the mountains of the Andes. 

The French call the Thorn-apple Stramonie ; the Germans, Stechapfel ; the 
Dutch, Doornappel ; the Italians, Stramonia ; the Spaniards, Estramonio. 
Stramonium is from the Greek word signifying Mad-apple, and JMefel, or 
Methel, is an old Arabic name for the plant, expressive of its narcotic effects. 
The Chinese are forbidden by law from mingling this plant with their 
fermented liquors. 

The Thorn-apple, naturalized in some degree in England, was introduced 
(according to Gerarde) into this country from Constantinople about 1597 ; but 
Miller says that we probably received it from Italy or Spain. Gerarde men- 
tions that a salve for burns and scalds was made of its leaves ; and he tells us 
that the plant was by him “dispersed through this land.” Kalm says of the 
Thorn-apple, that this and a species of Phytolacca are the worst weeds in 
America ; and Professor Martin remarks, that in the earth brought around 
plants from various parts of that extensive country, we are sure to have the 
Thorn-apple spring up. The flowers are very graceful and delicate, and are 
shielded during night by the leaves which surround them, and which rise at 
that time and enclose them. The whole plant has a strong odour of bean 
meal, and every part is poisonous. A variety of the common species has 
been found by Dr. Bromfield at Southsea, with purple stems and flowers. 


2. HENBANE (/Tyoscyamus). 


Common Henbane (H. niger).—Leaves clasping and cut ; stem much 
branched ; flowers nearly sessile, axillary ; annual or biennial. The flower 
and the dull foliage of the Henbane would readily suggest to any observant 
person the probability of the poisonous nature of the plant. Growing on a 
rounded branched stem, two or three feet high, which, as well as the foliage, 


] COMMON THORN APPLE 3. BITTERSWEET 


Datura stramonium Solanum duleamara 
2. COMMON HENBANE 4:, COMMON NIGHT SHADE 
Hyoscyamus nige S ngrum 


5. DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 
Atropa belladonna ,. 


JES BNE 


, 
‘ 
Mt 
Lert 
I 


i 
Os ae 
ae 


NIGHTSHADE TRIBE 271 


is covered with long, slender, clammy hairs, the large flowers are arranged in 
one-sided clusters. They are dingy yellow, marked usually, but not always, 
with lurid purplish-brown veins, and with purple anthers, expanding from 
June to August, and diffusing a most disagreeable odour. The plant grows 
on waste lands, sometimes on the heap of refuse near a dwelling, sometimes 
among the lowly graves of the churchyard, now and then on some bank by 
the wayside, or on some tall sea-cliff. The two-celled capsules enclosed in 
the calyx are covered by a lid, which falls off when the seeds are ripe, and we 
may sometimes see them in winter macerated by rain and dew, and with little 
left save a network of woody fibres. The capsule is shaped like a bean, and as 
swine are said to eat the plant, it is well known by the name of Hog’s Bean, 
and is also sometimes called Black Henbane. The French term it Jusqueame ; 
the Germans, Bilsenkraut ; the Dutch, Bilsenskruid ; the Italians, Giwsquiamo - 
the Spaniards, Beleno. 

The Henbane is powerfully narcotic, and when taken in any quantity is 
poisonous to man and to most animals, though both goats and sheep will take 
a small portion of its foliage, and swine eat it with impunity. No other 
animals will touch it, and very few of the insect race ever approach its flower 
or leaf for food. The foliage is the part used in the preparation of the 
valuable medicinal narcotic which is procured from this plant, and so often 
administered to the worn and sleepless sufferer ; but the seeds are also used. 
Lightfoot mentions that a man who ate afew of these seeds became insensible 
and lost the use of his limbs; but they do not seem at all times and with all 
constitutions to prove so poisonous. Sir J. E. Smith and Professor Martyn 
both state that they have eaten them without injury, and country children so 
often play with these seeds that if they were in all cases so noxious, we should 
certainly more frequently hear of serious consequences. The leaves are often 
smoked in villages to allay toothache, but the practice is an unsafe one. 
Anodyne necklaces, made of pieces of the root rounded and strung together, 
are sometimes worn round the necks of infants to facilitate the process of 
dentition. Pallas mentions that the seeds of the Purple-flowered Siberian 
Henbane make, when roasted and infused, an excellent substitute for coffee ; 
and the seeds of another species (H. datora) are also roasted for the same pur- 
pose by the Arabs, though in this case the beverage is intoxicating. 


3. NIGHTSHADE (Soldnumi). 


1. Woody Nightshade, or Bitter-sweet (S. dulcamdéra).—Stem 
shrubby ; leaves egg-shaped and heart-shaped ; upper leaves halberd-shaped 
and eared ; flowers in drooping clusters ; perennial. This plant, which is in 
some cases quite smooth, in others more or less hairy, is to be found in many 
of our hedges, especially such as are near streams. The glistening scarlet 
berries which hang on its boughs are, during October and November, far 
more conspicuous than the flowers of June and July. The blossoms are lurid 
purple, with two green spots at the base of each segment, and the yellow 
anthers are united into a pointed cone. The clusters hang opposite to the 
leaves, and the latter are dull green; while the straggling woody stems grow 
among the bushes, and are often eight or ten feet in length. The plant has 


272 SOLANEAL 


always been used medicinally in villages, and the external application of a 
decoction of its leaves has been employed with good effect ; but as stem, leaves, 
and fruit all contain poison, its administration internally, except by qualified 
persons, is highly dangerous. ‘The plant is in some places called Felon-wood, 
not improbably from some old use as a cure of whitlows, as these were 
formerly called felons. The roots have the odour of the potato, and are, 
when first chewed, bitter, but leave afterwards a taste of sweetness on the 
tongue ; hence the specific name of the plant. The French call this Night- 
shade Morelle ; the Germans, Schwarze Nachtschatten; the Dutch, Zwarte 
nagtschade ; the Italians, Solatro nero. Bytterswete is a very old English 
name for this plant. A variety (marinum) occurs on the south coast with a 
prostrate stem and fleshy leaves. 

2. Black Nightshade (S. négrwm).—Stem herbaceous; leaves egg- 
shaped, wavy at the edge, and bluntly toothed ; flowers drooping ; annual. 
This species is named from the round berries, which, when ripe, are of a 
black hue. The flowers have white petals and yellow anthers, and may be 
seen on the plant from June to October. This Nightshade often occurs as a 
weed in gardens, and is not uncommon on wayside banks, sea-beaches, and 
other uncultivated spots. Mr. Borrer found in Sussex a variety with the 
flowers white, but in which the berries were green. The whole plant is fetid 
and narcotic, and the fruits, though they have been used medicinally, possess, 
in our country at least, some poisonous properties. This plant, however, 
seems to be in this respect much influenced by climate ; for Mr. Backhouse 
tells us that in Norfolk Island the convicts commonly gather these berries and 
cook them. Nor is it only in that climate that they seem to lose their viru- 
lence. In the ‘‘ Bulletin des Naturalistes de Moscou,” it is stated that the 
berries of the Solanum nigrum are, in the Ukraine, destitute of the narcotic 
principle, and as they ripen become sweet and edible. Czerniaiew, the 

Russian writer who mentions this circumstance, endeavours to account for it 
by the high summer temperature of the Ukraine. 


4. Deapiy NIGHTSHADE (Afropa). 


Dwale, or Deadly Nightshade (4. belladénna).—Stem herbaceous ; 
leaves egg-shaped, undivided; flowers axillary, on short stalks ; perennial. 
This is a rare plant, and, as its name imports, is so poisonous that we cannot 
wish it were more frequent. Its stem is round, branched, slightly downy, 
and three or four feet high, bearing from June to August drooping bells of 
a dark lurid purple hue, which have a faint but unpleasant odour. The 
leaves are large, sometimes a foot long, and four or five inches broad, and 
the whole herb has a dull gloomy appearance. Not one of our British plants 
is so deadly as this, for its black shining juicy fruits, like small cherries, are 
highly poisonous, and produce fatal effects, even if avery small portion be 
taken. The calyx attached to these berries readily distinguishes them from 
cherries, but fatal mistakes have occurred in their use by the ignorant. 
Some years ago a man was prosecuted for selling these berries in a basket 
about London, and though it appeared that he was unacquainted with the 
dangerous nature of the fruits, yet several persons suffered in consequence. 
Children have sometimes died through eating these sweet berries, and doubt- 


NIGHTSHADE TRIBE 273 


less accidents would be more frequent but for the rareness of the plant, which 
has probably been in a measure extirpated by botanists and herbalists of 
former years. Its chief place of growth is in old quarries, or among ruins ; 
but it is sometimes to be found in woods and hedges. The old name of the 
plant, Dwale, is apparently a corruption of the French dewil, mourning ; and 
early English botanists called it Banewort, Sleeping Nightshade or Raging 
Nightshade, while its old French name was Morelle mortelle. Nor is the poison 
confined to the berries. A few grains of the dried leaves, or a small dose of 
the infusion of these leaves, will shortly cause dryness of the throat, and a 
most extravagant delirium, often accompanied by uncontrollable fits of 
laughter, sometimes with incessant talking, but in some instances by a total 
loss of the voice. The state of mind induced by taking it somewhat 
resembles somnambulism ; and a case is mentioned by Morehouse, in his 
work on “ Intoxicating Liquors,” of a man who was for fifteen hours speech- 
less and insensible to external objects, but who, meantime, went through all 
the operations of his trade with great assiduity, and moved his lips as if in 
conversation 

This plant is interesting to the historical reader from the narrative 
respecting it given by Buchanan, the historian. This author relates that the 
Scots under Macbeth, being desirous of poisoning the Danes, treacherously 
took the opportunity, during a season of truce, to mix the poisonous Night- 
shade with the ale with which they had agreed to supply them. The army 
of Sweno slept soundly, and their enemies then destroyed them during their 
helplessness. Our great dramatist is believed by many to have alluded to 
this plant when he represents Banquo as asking, “Or have we eaten of the 
insane root that takes the reason prisoner?” Professor Burnett remarks: 
“Even in earlier times the paroxysms of madness which were brought on by 
it seem, as indeed well they might, to have challenged the wonder of 
observers ; for it is supposed, and not without reason, to be the plant eaten 
by Mare Antony when distressed for provisions, and the strong effects of 
which are recorded by Plutarch in his account of the Parthian war. He says, 
those who sought for herbs obtained few that they had been accustomed to 
eat, and, in tasting unknown herbs, they found one that brought on madness 
and death. He that had eaten of it immediately lost all memory and know- 
ledge, but at the same time would busy himself in moving every stone which 
he met with, as if he was engaged on some very important pursuit.” 

Our oldest poets refer frequently to the somniferous properties of this 
Nightshade. Thus Chaucer says— 


‘‘ Arise, quod she; what, have ye dronken Dwale! 
Why slepen ye ? it is no nitertale.” 


A strange use for this plant is mentioned in a volume of miscellaneous 
collections, once belonging to William of Worcester, Sloane MS.: “ For to 
take alle maner of byrdys. Take whete or other corne, and take guse of 
Dwale and menche the corne therein, and ley it by the byrde’s hawnteyne ; 
and when they have eaten thereof, they shall slepe that ye may take them 
with your handys.” Gerarde was well aware of its powerful properties, 
for he says, “If you will follow my counsell, deale not with the same in any 

U.—35 


274 OROBANCHEAA 


case, and banish it from your gardens and the use of it also, being a plant so 
furious and deadly ; for it bringeth such as have eaten thereof into a dead 
sleepe, wherein many have died.” 

The Belladonna has been, in our times, recommended as a preventive 
against scarlet fever; and Professor Burnett says, that it does really seem 
to render persons insusceptible to that disorder. Its power of dilating the 
pupil of the eye renders this plant very serviceable to the oculist in his 
delicate operations on that organ, and this Nightshade is often applied 
externally in painful maladies. No part of the plant possesses any odour 
indicative of its poisonous nature, though this might be inferred from the 
lurid hue of its flowers. The juice of the ripe berries gives to paper a 
beautiful and durable tint of purple; and a cosmetic made in former days 
by the Italian ladies from its juices, procured for the plant the name of 
Belladonna. The Germans probably used it in the extermination of wolves, 
for they call it Wolfskirsche, wolt’s cherry. 


Order LX. OROBANCHEA—_BROOM-RAPE TRIBE. 


Calyx variously divided, not falling off ; corolla irregular, usually 2-lipped, 
imbricated in the bud; stamens 4, 2 long and 2 short ; anthers often pointed 
or bearded at the base; ovary in a fleshy disk, many seeded; style 1 ; 
stigma 2-lobed ; capsule 2-valved; seeds very minute, numerous, attached 
to the valves of the capsule in 2—4 rows. This order consists of herbaceous 
plants, which are parasitic on the roots of other vegetables. They are 
succulent and leafless, of a dingy red or brown colour, with large flowers of 
dull brown, vellow or purple, arranged in a spike on the upper part of the 
stem. 

1. BRooM-RAPE (Orobdnche).—Calyx of two pairs of sepals, sometimes 
with a small fifth, and often combined in front with 1—3 bracts at the base ; 
corolla gaping, 4—5-cleft, not falling off. Name from the Greek orobus, a 
vetch, and agche, to strangle, from the injurious effects produced on the plants 
to which they attach themselves. 

2. ToorHwort (Lathrwa).—Calyx bell-shaped, 4-cleft ; corolla gaping, 
2-lipped, the upper lip arched, entire, not falling off. Name from the Greek 
Lathraios, hid or concealed, becaise the plant often grows among dead leaves. 
By some authors this genus is included in the order Scrophularine. 


1. BROOM-RAPE (Orobdnche). 
* Bracts one to each flower ; stem simple. 


1. Greater Broom-rape (0. idjor).—Stem simple ; corolla inflated at 
the base in front, curved on the back ; upper lip slightly notched ; lower one 
in three segments, the middle lobe twice as large as the lateral ones ; stamens 
inserted near the base of the corolla, smooth below, their upper part and the 
style downy ; perennial. The wanderer over the heath-land, who, though 
he may not be a botanist, yet loves to mark the wild flowers there, is often 
arrested by the peculiar appearance of this plant. The botanist would at 
once guess that it was a parasitic plant, from its leafless succulent condition 


GREATER BROOM RAPE 


ie 


u 


Orobanche major . 


CLOVE-SCENTED B.R, 


Oelatior . 


O.caryophyllacea . 


2. 


i) 


PI 


BROOM-RAPE TRIBE 275 


and dingy hue. Many, on first looking on it, have believed it to be the 
remains of a flower from which the summer’s sun had withered away all the 
beauty. The stem, swollen at the base, would lead one to suppose it to be 
the crown of the root, and the scales upon the stem serve on the upper 
portion as bracts, one occurring under each corolla. Stem, scales, and flowers, 
all have much similarity in hue, being tinted with reddish-brown ; but the 
blossoms have besides a tinge of purple and dull yellow. They grow in a 
long close spike, expanding from May to July. We have seen specimens of 
the plant two feet and a half high, and the stem thick as a walking-stick ; 
but it is more commonly a foot, or a foot and a half in height. It is very 
clammy to the touch. 

The Broom-rapes, of which there are several species, are very difficult of 
discrimination, and authors are much divided as to the exact number of really 
distinct forms. Parasitic plants become much altered, too, by the substance 
of the plants on which they feed, so that it requires much attention to 
ascertain how far any distinctions are permanent. The whole family are 
parasitic on the roots of other vegetables, each species preferring its own 
peculiar aliment. It has been proved by experiments, that their seeds will 
lie dormant in the soil for years, until the plant to which the species attaches 
itself shoots out its roots near them, when they immediately seize upon 
them, often to the very great detriment of the foster-plant. The Greater 
Broom-rape is by no means unfrequent on gravelly heaths, selecting the 
roots of various species of the Leguminous tribe, especially shrubby plants. 
Mr. Loudon says, that any of the Broom-rapes may be made to grow in the 
garden on the furze and broom; and this large species is more often, when 
wild, found on these than on any other plants. It has the old name of 
Herba leonina. 

The Broom-rapes have all a degree of acridity, and some astringency and 
bitterness. They were formerly used in medicines, and their juice was 
believed to cure agues and toothache, and to remove freckles or sunburn. 
They have in country places the old name of Strangleweed, and the species 
are more or less frequent throughout Europe, as well as in other quarters of 
the world. Sir Joseph Hooker found the Orobanche indica swarming in 
Bengal over broad acres of flax and rape. The French and Italians call the 
Broom-rape Orobanche ; the Germans Erbsenwiirger ; and the Dutch, Leeww- 
staart. 

2. Clove-scented Broom-rape (0. caryophyllicea).—Sepals many- 
nerved, lanceolate, equally 2-cleft, shorter than the tube of the corolla, 
touching each other, or combined in front; corolla bell-shaped, curved on 
the back, upper lip broad, 2-lobed, lower 3-lobed, the segments blunt, nearly 
equal, wavy ; stamens hairy below, above, together with the style, invested 
with glandular down; stigma blackish-purple; perennial. This species is 
very rare in this kingdom, being found only in South Kent, where it grows 
on the roots of the great hedge bedstraw (Galiwm mollugo). It occurs, 
however, in some continental countries, and has been seen in Siberia and 
Italy, and has attracted the attention of the Asiatic traveller on the mountains 
of the Himalaya. The general habit and size of this plant is pretty much 
the same as that of the Greater Broom-rape, but it differs from it in having 

35— 2 


276 OROBANCHEA 


the three segments of the lower lip obtuse, and much more fringed and 
curled. A still more striking feature of distinction consists, however, in the 
lower part of the stamens being thickly clothed with hairs on the inside, 
whereas that part in 0. major is smooth; the dark purple stigma, too, of 
this species affords another characteristic, as that of 0. major is yellow. To 
one unaccustomed to mark these minute characters, the fragrant odour of 
cloves would at once indicate this rare flower when nearly expanded ; and 
Gerard E. Smith says, the scent is remarkably developed if it be flowered in 
water. The plant is variable in height, colour, and the number of its 
blossoms: its prevailing hue is a dusky purple; but it occurs also of a 
yellowish-brown, or nearly white. The author just alluded to says in his 
work on the rare flowering plants of South Kent, “The spikes are obtuse, 
scantily clothed with from ten to sixty flowers; the stem is flexuose and 
fragile, hollow, with much white pith.” It grows, he says, in hedges and 
waste grounds, below Cesar’s Camp Hill, the Sugar-loaf Hill in Eastwear 
Bay, near Lydden Spout, and eastwards to Dover. 

3. Red Broom-rape (0. rubra).—Sepals l-nerved, pointed, longer than 
the tube of the corolla, undivided ; corolla slightly curved externally, having 
the upper lip covered within with glandular down; lips toothed and curled, 
upper one 2-lobed, lower one 3-lobed; stamens slightly hairy below, their 
upper part and the upper part of the style having glandular hairs ; stigma 
light red; perennial. This plant, which is found chiefly along the west 
coasts of England and Scotland, and in Ireland, is parasitic upon the common 
thyme. It is slightly fragrant. 

4, Tall Broom-rape (0. eldtior).—Sepals many-nerved, equally 2-cleft, 
as long as the tube of the corolla, connected in front; corolla curved, limb 
spreading, unequally toothed, wavy ; upper lip 2-lobed, lower 3-lobed, the 
segments nearly equal, acute; filaments smooth above, glandular, hairy 
below; stigma of 2 lobes of brownish-yellow; perennial. This is a rare 
species, having less of the reddish or purplish brown tint than the preceding, 
and being altogether of a duller, yellowish hue. The stem is two or three 
feet high; and the plant, which flowers from June to August, is rare, but 
found in several parts of England, growing on the roots of the great knap- 
weed (Centaurea scabiosa). 

5. Lesser Broom-rape (0. ménor).—Sepals many-nerved, broad below, 
suddenly narrowing into one or two acute points, as long or longer than the 
tube of the corolla; corolla curved; lips bluntly toothed, wavy, upper lip 
2-lobed, lower of three roundish lobes; stamens hairy below ; style nearly 
smooth; lobes of the stigma purple, and nearly distinct ; annual. This 
species, which occurs chiefly on the common red clover, is, however, parasitic 
on various other plants. In Norfolk, Kent, Surrey, and some other counties, 
it is often very abundant on the clover-fields ; but, unlike most of the species, 
it does not seem greatly to injure the crop which it infests, though, of course, 
it occupies some room on the soil. It has not, at any rate, the effects which 
the ancients ascribed to all the species, which they disliked not alone for the 
space which they occupied in their fields and the nourishment which they 
took from the foster plants, but also from the notion that they imparted to 
them a deleterious property. Hence the Greeks rejected beans on which the 


nw 


PICRIS BROOM RAPER 
Orobanche picridis 
LESSER B. R 
O. minor 
LV B.. R 
O. hederze 


4, PURPLE B. R. 


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Pl. 168. 


O. eerulea 
BRANCHED B. R 

O. pamosa 
GREATER. TOOTHWORT 

Lathrea squamaria 


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BROOM-RAPE TRIBE 277 


Broom-rape had attached itself, believing them to be unwholesome. A variety 
of this, and called by some writers the Bluish Broom-rape (0. amethgstea), is 
parasitical upon the sea-side carrot along the south coast from Cornwall to 
Kent. It apparently differs only by having the corolla curved, and the lobes 
of the purple stigma growing in a straggling manner. 

6. Picris Broom-rape (0. picridis).—Sepals 1—3-nerved, entire, or 
toothed in front, below gradually narrowed into one or two sharp points ; 
corolla swelled at the base, slightly curved at each end, nearly straight at 
the back ; lips toothed, wavy, upper without notches, lower of three roundish 
lobes, the middle one the largest ; stamens hairy in their lower half within ; 
style glandular below, in front, and throughout on its upper half; stigma 
lobed, purple; anthers purple or yellowish; annual. This rare species is 
found in the Isle of Wight, in Cambridgeshire, Kent and Surrey, flowering 
in June and July on the yellow Picris. Many authors doubt if it is really 
distinct as a species, and regard it as a sub-species or a variety of O. minor. 

7. Ivy Broom-rape (0. héderw).—Sepals 1-nerved, broad below, sud- 
denly contracting into 1—2 awl-shaped points, nearly as long or longer than 
the tube of the corolla ; corolla curved ; lips toothed, wavy, upper lip 2-lobed, 
its sides straight, lower of three roundish nearly equal lobes; stamens 
smooth, slightly hairy below ; style smooth, or with a few hairs on the upper 
part ; stigma yellow, scarcely lobed; perennial. This form, which has a 
purplish stem, is parasitical upon the ivy in the south and west of England 
and Wales, and at Muckross Abbey, and some other Irish localities. It is 
most abundant on the ivy in the neighbourhood of Dublin, and has been 
_ planted on that evergreen in the Botanic Gardens of Glasnevin with success. 
Many botanists believe it to be but a form of 0. minor, from which it differs 
chiefly by its yellow stigma, which has its lobes attached together, instead of - 
being nearly distinct. 


* * Bracts three under each flower ; stems in some species branched. 


8. Purple Broom-rape (0. cerilea).—Stem simple ; calyx with five 
short acute teeth ; corolla tubular, curved in front, middle of the tube com- 
pressed, upper lip of the corolla cloven, lobes of the lips acute, with rolled 
margins; anthers smooth; style downy; stigma scarcely 2-lobed, white. 
This is a rare species, growing in grassy pastures, especially near the sea. It 
has been found in Hertfordshire, Cornwall, and the Isle of Wight, but is less 
rare in Norfolk than elsewhere. It flowers from June to August ; the stem, 
scales, bracts, calyx, and corolla are all slightly downy, and the flowers 
incline more to purplish-blue than in any other species. 

9. Sand Broom-rape (0. arendria).—Stem simple; calyx with five 
short awl-shaped teeth ; corolla tubular, nearly straight, the middle of the 
tube compressed at the back, throat slightly inflated, upper lip cloven, lobes 
of the lips blunt, rolled back at the margin, lower lip hairy within, line down 
the anthers hairy ; perennial. This rare species, or probably sub-species of 
0. cerulea, is found at Alderney, in the Channel Islands, where it is parasitical 
on the common yarrow. 

10. Branched Broom-rape (0. ramésa).—Stem branched ; calyx with 
four triangular egg-shaped pointed teeth ; upper lip of corolla deeply cloven; 


278 OROBANCHEAL 


anthers smooth ; annual, This very rare plant occurs casually on the roots 
of hemp in Norfolk, Suffolk, and some other counties ; but it is not a native. 
It is altogether of much paler colour than most of the species, and its stems 
are usually branched. It flowers in August and September. 

The beauty of some of the Broom-rapes of other countries has induced 
many persons to attempt their cultivation. The culture of parasitic plants 
has, in many cases, been found difficult. Dr. Berthold Seeman remarks, that 
the species of loranthus of tropical and sub-tropical regions are most beautiful 
plants, bearing, instead of the inconspicuous flower of our mistletoe, blossoms 
of the peenreet scarlet and yellow colours, and often averaging more than 
eight inelies 4 in length. He adds, “ What gardener has ever looked over the 
plates, even of our European Floras, or herborised on any part of the British 
Isles or the Continent, who has not been struck with some of the Broom- 
rapes, and regretted his inability to rear these rivals of Orchidez in the 
establishment under his care?” It has, however, been found possible to 
cultivate this tribe of plants, and several of the European species have been 
reared with success in the Botanic Garden of Gottingen. A writer in the 
Gardener’s Chronicle, in December, 1853, remarks, “Professor Barthing, the 
learned director of the Géttingen Garden, collected, some years ago, seeds of 
all the Orobanches which he could procure ; and sowing them in pots upon 
the roots of those plants to which they are partial, he had the satisfaction of 
seeing them spring up and produce their elegant flowers. The experiment 
is easily imitated ; but he who is about to attempt it should make himself 
perfectly acquainted with the mode of growth of each individual species 
which he has determined to raise. Some of them, for instance, will be found 
attached to the extremities of the roots; others close to the main stem of 
the plants.” Unless these points are attended to, the seeds of the Broom- 
rapes may remain for years in the soil without vegetating. A later writer 
in the same journal stated that living parasites were then growing well in the 
Botanic Garden of Glasnevin ; and that Broom-rapes, toothworts, dodders, 
and other parasitic plants usually deemed difficult of culture, succeeded well 
in a small town garden known to the writer, though in these cases the plants 
had not been reared from seed, but by a kind of root-grafting. 


2. Toorawort (Lathrea). 


Greater Toothwort (L. squamdria).—Flowers drooping in 1-sided 
racemes, lower lip of the corolla 3-cleft; bracts broadly egg-shaped or 
lanceolate ; perennial. ‘This parasite is not to be found, like the broom-rape, 
growing beneath the broad sunshine, for it springs up in the recesses of the 
summer woodland. It attaches itself there to the roots of the elm, hazel, or 
other trees; and, though a rare plant, occurs in various parts of England, 
Ireland, and Scotland. It is a juicy, leafless plant, with many fleshy, tooth- 
like scales, often, but not always, colourless. The leafless parasites have 
usually the singular property of never developing any bright colours or 
assuming any green tint. The Toothwort, however, when exposed to a 
greater degree of light than that under which it is ordinarily found, becomes 
much affected in hue by the circumstance. Mr. Dovaston, who planted this 
parasite on the roots of the hazel, tells us that just as he had despaired of 


BROOM-RAPE TRIBE 279 


the result, he succeeded in making it grow. He remarks: “It was four 
years, and in some cases five, before it came up visibly. I gathered the seeds 
in Erddig woods, where you may remember we saw it in great luxuriance. 
It will, however, turn pink or purple when very much exposed to the light ; 
for having cut away some of the hazel branches to bring it more in view of 
the walk, the sunbeams, in a few days, turned it so very pinky and purple, 
that some ladies were very much struck with the beauty and delicacy of the 
colours, though the plant itself is rather of a repulsive and cadaverous 
aspect.” Like other leafless parasites, however, the plant seems to have the 
peculiar property of resisting the action of light, towards which all the green 
portions of a soil-sustained plant irresistibly turn, as we may see in those of 
our windows and greenhouses. ‘The Toothwort, when its flower-stems have 
acquired their full height, is not always erect, and it branches from the very 
base. It sometimes grows in little circular groups of twenty or thirty plants 
together. The flowers, which are ranged down one side of the stem, are as 
often turned from the only side on which the light can enter as towards it. 
The flowers are sometimes dull, pale purple, or pink ; sometimes of a brownish 
or pinkish white. They have broad bracts at their base, and expand in April 
and May, the pale stem rising from among the withered leaves of the last 
autumn to about a foot high; the branches or stems at its base being either 
below the leafy mass, or frequently beneath the surface of the soil. The 
subterranean stem has on it a number of scales, which in size, shape, and 
colour have a very remarkable resemblance to the human front-tooth, and 
suggested the specific name of Sguamaria (from the Latin squama, a scale), as 
well as the English Toothwort ; and, of course, the herbalists accepted the 
resemblance as proof that the plant was a cure for toothache. 

The French call this plant La Clandestine ; the Germans, Schuppenwurz ; 
the Dutch, Schubwortel ; the Spaniards, Madiona; the Portuguese, Dentaria 
bastarda. 


END OF VOL. IJ. 


Guildford: 


PRINTED BY BILLING AND SONS. 


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