PURPLE DEAD NETTLE 223 



called Bride-weed, Butter-and-Eggs, Buttered Haycocks, Chopt Eggs, 

 Churnstaff, Dooyies, Dragon-bushes, Eyos- and -bacon, Eoos-and- 

 butter, Eggs-and-collops, Toad, \\'ild and Yellow Toad Flax, Flax- 

 weed, Gallwort, Larkspur, Lion's Mouth, Monkey Flower, Pattens-and- 

 clogs. Rabbits, Snapdragon, Yellow or \'aller Rod. The name Snap 

 Dragon is in vogue and explained because the dowers are "fashioned 

 like a frog's mouth, or rather a dragon's mouth; from whence the 

 women have taken the name Snap Dragon ". Coles says it was called 

 Toadflax "because Toads will sometimes shelter themselves amonost 

 the branches of it ". Gallwort was applied because it is bitter and 

 used "against the flowing of the gall in cattell ". 



It was supposed to avert witchcraft. Because it was considered to 

 be associated with the evil one it was called Devil's Ribbon. It was 

 said to possess the power of destroying charms. It was also supposed 

 to be capable of "cleansing" the skin wonderfully of all sorts of de- 

 formity ". It is bitter and acid, and has been used in dropsical cases 

 and for sore eyes. Piles have been cured by ointment made from it. 

 In Sweden people used to boil the plant in milk to kill flies with the 

 infusion made from it. 



Essential Specific Characters: — 



229. Linaria vulgaris. Mill. — Stem erect, branched, glabrous, leaves 

 linear-lanceolate, flowers yellow, terminal, in dense racemes, sepals 

 ovate, acute, glabrous. 



Purple Dead Nettle ( Lamium purpureum, L.) 



The present distribution ot this common plant is the X. Temperate 

 Zone in Europe, the Canaries, Siberia, \V. Asia, and it is introduced 

 in North America. It is unkno\\n in early deposits. In (ireat 

 Britain Purple Dead Nettle is found throughout the country, and in 

 Northumberland ascends to 2000 ft. 



Purple Dead Nettle is almost entirely a weed of cultivation, occur- 

 ring freely on all kinds of waste ground, and in gardens as well as in 

 all cultivated fields; and whilst the W'hite Dead Nettle may be found 

 along the roadside under hedges far from dwellings, Red Dead Nettle 

 is more or less attached to these last or the vicinity of tilled land. 



The stem is weak, suberect, square, with paired spreading branches, 

 originating from near the base of the stem. The leaves are stalked, 

 heart-shaped, blunt, coarsely toothed, the upper ones rather close. 

 The stem is naked below. The foliage has a purple tinge. 



The flowers are purple, in more or less terminal whorls, with many 



