96 SCOTCH NAMES OF NATIVE WILD FLOWERS. 



diseases of all kinds. No wonder that M.D.'s were a scant crop 

 "langsyne" with such potent all-healing "yerbs" in abundance. 



Meduart — the meadow plant — is not such a good descriptive 

 name as meadow-sweet (Spiraa Ulmaria). 



Milkorts or milkworts are, according to Jamieson, Scotch blue 

 bells (Campanula rotundifolid). Eating the plant was believed 

 to improve the milk of cattle, hence the name. Whether the 

 improvement is in quality or colour I know not. If in colour, 

 then this plant may be responsible for the beautiful blue tint 

 observable in much of the milk supplied here. It (plant) was 

 also called witch bells. Though no beauties themselves, these 

 ancient ladies, the witches, knew what was good and beautiful in 

 flowers, and could appreciate the same. Their taste in this 

 respect was far superior to their master's, as we shall see by-and-by. 



Segg is the fleur-de-luce or yellow iris (Iris Pseud-acorus). The 

 word is the same as the modern word sedge. 



Sourock (the Rumex Acetosd) takes its name from the acid 

 flavour of the leaves, and reminds one of boyhood, when we were 

 still in the omnivorous stage of stomach development. 



Souks or soukies — another boy's-name — is the red clover 

 (Trifolium pratense). These clover heads produced large quantities 

 of honey which only boys and bumble bees suck, by different 

 processes, of course, and with different results. The bee benefits 

 the plant and so pays honestly for his refresher; the boy, the 

 father of the man, quaffs his sweet, and by so doing destroys the 

 spring that supplies him. It is not often that the names given by 

 children are permanent, but these last two are. 



Wabran is the Scotch form of the English name way-bread 

 (Plantago major). Wabran (way-bran) means bran, or coarse 

 grain, growing by the way-side. The heads are a favourite food 

 for birds, hence its common modern name of bird seed. 



Michen is bald-money, or Meum Athamanticum, from the 

 Gaelic moiken. Sinkel is another name for the same plant, from 

 the Latin name finkel. 



Centaurea Cyanus is the blaewort, or blue bonnets, from its 

 colour; and witch bells, or witch thimbles, from some supposed 

 connection between it and those unholy sweethearts of the evil 

 one. The colour blue seems to have been as great a favourite 

 with our ancient witches as it is with the bewitching witches of 



