16 INTRODUCTION. 



The monks and hermits of the early ages of Chris- 

 tianity led many plants in their train, which have 

 stopped behind them, to memorialize the attention 

 they paid to the study of their qualities. Such pro- 

 bably are Helecampane (Inula Selenium), Sweet 

 Cicely (Scandix odor at a), and Vervain (Verbena offici- 

 cinalis), all generally met with in the vicinity of habi- 

 tations or monastic ruins. Smyrnium olusatrum, 

 certainly used in old times as a pot-herb, comes into 

 the same category. Bound, in many instances, by 

 their vows to live on vegetable diet, a garden was 

 indispensable to their purpose, while the calls of the 

 peasantry on their medical skill required the cultiva- 

 tion of such as would furnish them with decoctions 

 and balms for the protean forms of disease, as then 

 understood and encountered. But, independent of 

 this, amusement was required to unbend the mind 

 tired with the sameness of austerity ; and nothing 

 could surely be more innocent than the cultivation of 

 that love for flowers which all mankind possess, bent 

 as it was presumed to pious uses, by connecting the 

 names of the Yirgin and saints, and the recurrence of 

 festivals, with the appearance of the varied blossoms 

 of the year. In the old olatory gardens, were a host 

 of disease-destroying plants, which as wound-worts, 

 heal-alls, or loose-strifes, effected wonders in their 

 day, and were balms for all possible ailments, though 

 now abandoned and neglected. Even in later times, 

 certain plants have obtained celebrity for some fancied 

 power or property, and so been spread about. Such, 

 according to WILLDENOW, has been the case with the 

 common Thorn- Apple (Datura Stramonium), which 

 now scattered throughout the greater part of Europe 



