ROSACEA. 127 
longer than the upper, and overtopping them. Petals with the 
lamina orbicular. Follicles 5 to 9, glabrous, contorted. 
In wet meadows and by the side of water. Common, and 
generally distributed. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 
Rootstock shortly creeping. Stem erect, furrowed, purplish, 
2 to 4 feet high, simple or slightly branched. Radical leaves often 
very long, with the leaflets distant ; larger leaflets 13 to 3 inches 
long, the smaller ones + to $ inch, the terminal one resembling 3 
of the larger leaflets united together. Stem-leaves much shorter 
than the radical ones, with the leaflets closer together and smaller. 
Cyme 4 to 8 inches long, with the exterior branches long and 
naked at the base, ascending so as to appear a continuation of the 
stem, so that the inflorescence at first sight appears to be a panicle. 
Flowers + to 2 inch across, cream-white. Calyx-segments ovate, 
reflexed. Stamens longer than the petals. Carpels falcate, con- 
torted, olive-green. Stem glabrous, branches of the panicle pubes- 
cent. Leaves deep-green, sub-glabrous above, usually white with 
a dense covering of felted hairs beneath; but the radical leaves 
are sometimes destitute of this hoary covering, and are merely 
pubescent especially on the veins. 
Meadow-sweet, Queen-of-the-Meadow. 
French, Spirée Reine des Prés. German, Achtes Méidesiiss. 
We find in Dr. Prior’s work on the “ Popular Names of British Plants,” that the 
name “ Meadow-sweet ” is ungrammatical and ridiculous, a corruption of Meadwort—the 
mead or honey-wine herb. Hill tells us, in his “ Herbal,” that “the flowers mixed with 
mead give it the flavour of the Greek wines ;” and this is unquestionably the source of 
the word. Nemnich also says that it gives beer and various wines and other drinks an 
agreeable flavour. The Latin Regina prati, meadow’s queen, seems to have misled our 
herbalists to form a strangely compounded name now in use. Mead and the old German 
medo is an intoxicating drink, and a word that indicates the Asiatic origin of “the 
beverage of the North.” This may be very proper criticism, but we are inclined to 
think that there is no difficulty in accounting for the common name of this plant to 
any one who has inhaled its sweet perfume in the meadows where it grows. Surely its 
little flowers do render the “ meadows sweet ;” and if we read old Gerarde’s opinion, 
we easily trace the very early origin of this suggestive name, and we can sympathize 
with our ancestors, who prized such fragrant herbs as perfumed their chambers, before 
the more costly custom of carpets was introduced. He says: “The leaves and flowers 
far excel all other strowing herbs for to decke up houses, to strowe in chambers, hals, 
and banketting houses in the summer time, for the smell thereof maketh the hart 
merrie, delighteth the senses ; neither doth it cause headache, or loathsomnesse to 
meate, as some other sweete-smelling herbes do.” 
‘<’Mid sweets as varied as the scene, 
Distinct is thine, fair Meadow’s Queen, 
With buds of pearly dye. 
