APPLERISGIE. 23 



keeping strong - smelling herbs or leaves near at hand as a 

 supposed preventative or charm against disease. But, whatever 

 may have been its origin, most people are satisfied with the 

 thought that it helps to sustain drowsy listeners when the cir- 

 cumstances are trying. 



Our present interest is to notice how the custom of using this 

 plant as a church flower has followed it, and how both this 

 custom and the plant's immigration to Scotland have to do with 

 tracing the evolution of the name Appleringie. 



If we had been brought up in a French village, instead of 

 in some corner of the British Isles, we would have seen how 

 naturally our mothers and aunts, on starting for church, walked 

 into the garden and plucked a handful of the sweet-smelling 

 plant. The customs in France and Scotland are so much alike 

 as to suggest, even without knowing anything more, that the 

 one may have been borrowed from the other. 



Appleringie, Apleringie, or Aipleringie — spell it as you please 

 — is the Scotch name of the plant which in English is called 

 Southernwood, and whose scientific name is Artemisia Abrotonum, 

 Linn. Scotch people do not need to be told that the " g " is 

 pronounced hard, as in " ring," and that the first part of the 

 word is usually pronounced as in the third spelling just given. 



What we read of any plant in early times has usually reference 

 only to its economic value. Many are mentioned solely on 

 account of their supposed medicinal virtues, and among these 

 the Appleringie takes an important place. Its Latin name is 

 Abrotonum, which in turn is derived from the Greek privative 

 prefix a and /3/oords, mortal, meaning that it had great power 

 in saving from death. Horace says of it — 



" Navim agere ignarus navis timet ; abrotonum segro 

 Non audet, nisi qui didicit, dare." 

 Pliny extols its virtues and enumerates twenty-two ailments 

 which could be cured by the plant, and Culpepper and hosts of 

 herbalists have followed suit in later generations. Indeed, its 

 healing virtues, as believed in at different times, have been so 

 numerous as to make it appear worthy of getting the West Coast 

 Highlander's tribute to his cure transferred to it — " I wouldna 

 like to be ill wi' what whisky wouldna cure ! " The disagreeable 

 taste would help in strengthening confidence as to the plants 



