LORDS AND LADIES 235 
Black Bryony is a clay-loving plant, and addicted to a clay soil, 
or partly a sand-loving plant, and found on sand soil. 
Tamus, Gesner, Pliny says, was used as asparagus, as a diuretic, 
and for spleen. In Tuscany it is called ¢amaro, and is now eaten as 
asparagus there. The second Latin name refers to its wide distribution. 
The plant is called Adder’s Meat, Adder’s Poison, Bead Bind, 
Bindweed, Broyant, Bryony, Black Bryony, Elphamy, Isle of Wight 
Vine, Lady’s Seal, Mandrake, Murrain Berries, Oxberry, Poison 
Berry, Roberry, Rowberry, Rueberry, Rollberry, Serpent's Meat, 
Snakeberry, Snake’s Food, Wild Vine. 
It is called Serpent's Meat where an idea prevails that snakes are 
always lurking about the places where it grows, perhaps by Doctrine 
of Signatures, on account of its serpentine habit. In Montgomery it is 
used to rub on the joints of animals, especially of pigs, that are lame 
from a disease which is there called Broyant. It is called Oxberry 
because the berries are collected by the farmers as a cure for barrenness 
in cattle. It was named Our Lady’s Seal because of the supposed 
efficacy of its roots, when spread in a plaster, and applied to heal up 
a scar or bruises. It is a climbing plant, which hibernates by tubers 
formed by a lateral outgrowth of the first two internodes of the stem. 
EssENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS :— 
299. Zamus communis, .—Stem twining, wiry, leaves shiny, 
cordate, acute, plant dicecious, flowers in axillary racemes, yellowish- 
green, berry red. 
Lords and Ladies (Arum maculatum, L.) 
This common hedgerow plant is distributed throughout the N. 
Temperate Zone in Europe from Gothland southward, N. Africa, 
and is not represented in early deposits. Cuckoo Pint, as it is also 
widely styled, is found generally throughout England and Wales; in 
the E. Lowlands only in Roxburgh, Berwick, Edinburgh; in the 
Highlands only in Stirling, Mid and East Perth, Dumbarton, Clyde 
Islands, S. Ebudes; or from Caithness southward, and up to 1000 ft. 
in N. England. It is doubtfully wild in Scotland, and grows in Ireland 
and the Channel Islands. 
Lords and Ladies is a peculiar plant, having likes and dislikes, just 
as Dog’s Mercury, Red Campion, Greater Stitchwort, and some other 
common species, for certain areas. It is a shade plant, fond of growing 
in woods and under hedges, and is not a lover of sand, but rather of 
mild humus. 
