NATURE NAMES IN AMERICA 69 



while thicket has about it more of the delightful abandon of nature. 

 We are not alone in this matter of lost words in the common speech. 

 In England, as well as in America, the word glade has passed from 

 every-day speech, and more 's the pity, for it is a charming word when 

 associated with its real meaning of an open, sun-lit space in the woods, 

 a place of gladness in the midst of gloom. 



The varied features of the American wilderness — swamp and creek, 

 hill, dale and river valley, and over all the forest of a primeval world 

 with its wild life untouched by any hand save that of nature — these 

 waited the coming of a people that would give them, by name and 

 word, a place and part in another world, a world of literature. A large 

 measure of man's curiosity concerning the things of his environment 

 has been directed to finding out the nature and virtues of the divers 

 kinds of plants that seemed to grow mainly for his use and delectation. 

 This plant lore antedates the oldest written history. From the very 

 beginning it has been a part of man's self in the food question and in 

 the healing of bodily ills. The greater number of our wild herbs and 

 trees, as well as the long domesticated varieties, received their names 

 in a time so long past that only the names themselves can reveal their 

 origin. Here is history that outdoes Homer and Herodotus and all the 

 writings of the ancients. In the words of Prior, the author of British 

 Plant Names, we are led, in thinking over these names, " to recall the 

 times from which they date, to picture to ourselves the living figures of 

 our ancestors, to hear them speaking their obsolete dialect, and almost 

 to make the weeds that shadow their grave tell more than their tomb- 

 stone of its sleeping inhabitants." 



The early colonists found many plants in the new world of kinds 

 with which they were more or less familiar. Hence we find a predom- 

 inance of European names in our American flora. Aside from this, 

 many old world species began shortly to make their appearance in 

 America and soon became naturalized on American soil. It is a matter 

 of some interest to run through a Gray's ' Manual ' and note how many 

 of the species are naturalized from Europe. The origins of a large 

 number of our English plant names are involved in a curious attitude 

 of the medieval mind toward the productions of nature. These were 

 regarded as presenting by their forms, colors, or other properties, tokens 

 of the Divine will for the benefit of sinful man. This remarkable idea 

 was embodied in what was known as the doctrine of signatures, and is 

 thus set forth by William Coles in a quaint old work entitled the ' Art 

 of Simpling.' 



Through Sin and Sathan have plunged Mankinde into an Ocean of In- 

 firmities, yet the Mercy of God which is over all his workes, maketh Grasse to 

 grow upon the Mountains, and Herbes for the use of Men, and hath not only 

 stamped upon them a distinct forme, but also given them particular Signatures, 

 whereby a Man may read, even in legible characters, the use of them. 



A name that is dear to us as a welcome of the spring — hepatica — 



