168 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



By roadsides in waste places, in cultivated ground, and in meadows 

 and pastures. "Very common, and generally distributed. Var. ^ in 

 dry places. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer, Autumn. 



Rootstock short, thick, premorse, at least in old plants, 1-headed. 

 Leaves with the petiole 1 to 6 inches long ; the lamina 1 to 6 inches ; 

 in var. a generally shorter than the petiole, in var. 3 usually longer, 

 but this is not constant. Scapes 1 to 18 inches high, the spike in fruit 

 varying from ^ inch to nearly 1 foot long. Bracts green on the l)ack, 

 pale and scarious at the borders. Sepals all alike broadly oval, obtuse, 

 broadly white and scarious at the margins. Segments of the corolla 

 broadly lanceolate, scarious. Stamens not much longer than the 

 corolla; anthers pale purple. Capsule ovate-ovoid; seeds black, dim, 

 roughened, plano-convex, angular. Plant dull green. Scapes generally 

 with adpressed pointed hairs; petioles with spreading jointed hairs, 

 the leaves also frequently sparingly clothed with similar hairs, 



Var. 3 is common by roadsides and m other dry places, but it 

 seems to have no claim to be considered even a subspecies. The 

 leaves vary in both varieties in respect to their base being dentate 

 or nearly entire. The seeds of var. are usually brown instead of 

 black, and the spikes thicker and less tapering, and commonly ranch. 

 more densely flowered; for though sometimes slightly interrupted 

 towards the base, they are so in a less degree than in the typical 

 form. It never seems to attain so great a size as var. a, but similar 

 variations occur in P. media and P. lanceolata. 



Greater Plantain. 



Frencli, Flantain a larges feuilles. German, grosser Wegcrich. 

 This plant is sometimes called "Waybread," a corruption, it is supposed, of "Way- 

 bred," from its growing by waysides and footpaths. Some authors imagine that 

 even this is a departure from its old Saxon name of wahret, by which it is yet com- 

 monly known in Teviotdale. This name occurs in our early poets, and one of them, 

 humorously describing a bee's pilgrimage, says — • 



" And with a wabret leaf he made a wallet. 

 With scrip to beg his crumbs and pick his sallet." 



In some places the plantain is called Cuckoo's Bread ; and in Devonshire it is said 

 to have been once a maiden who, watching by the wayside for her lover, was changed 

 into the plant, which still loves to fis itself beside the beaten path. Once in seven 

 years it becomes a bird, either the cuckoo or the cuckoo's servant, the dinnicl; as it 

 is called in Devonshire, the German " wicdkopf," which is said to follow its master 

 everywhere. In some j)arts of Germany the call of the cuckoo is thought to disclose 

 mines ; and certain plants which have received from it their name, and some share of 

 its prophetical character, arc thought to grow in most luxuriance where the depths 

 of the earth are rich in metal. Whether the plantain be among these I cannot say, 

 but it seems almost too common to have any claim to such augury. The leaves 

 possess some degree of astringency, and when braised and rubbed on the part aflPectcd, 



