UMBELLIFERiE. 93 



In woods and thickets. Common, and generally distributed, but 

 not reaching to Orkney. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 



Eootstock shortly creeping, with a few thick brownish scales at 

 the top, the remains of decayed leaf-stalks. Stem erect, 8 inches 

 to 2 feet high, simple, often leafless or with a single leaf. Radical 

 leaves on stalks 2 to 8 inches long, lamina IJ to 3 inches across, 

 cordate at the base. General involucre of several pinnatifid or 

 simple mucronate serrate leaf-like segments ; rays of the umbel 2 to 

 8, at first short, afterwards elongate and very unequal; umbel- 

 lules ^ inch across. Involucel of numerous linear aristate leaves. 

 Flowers ^-g inch across, white tinged with pink, the male flowers 

 in 2 or 3 rows on the outside, with the calyx-segments and petals 

 larger than in the female ones. Ovary covered with hooked bristly 

 prickles in the female flowers. Petals about as long as the calyx- 

 teeth, notched, erect, with an inflexed point. Stamens incurved, 

 much longer than the petals. Cremocarp ^ inch long, ovate-ovoid, 

 thickly covered with hooked spines. Plant glabrous, bright-green, 

 the leaves paler beneath ; stems often reddish. 



Wood Sanicle. 



French, Sanicle d' Europe. German, Europaischer Sanikel. 



The name of this genus is usually stated to have reference to its reputed healing 

 powers ; but we learn from Dr. Prior, the most recent writer on the origin and 

 meaning of the names of British plants, that it is not so. He says : " On the principles 

 of etymology it is impossible, indeed, as Adelung remarks, an even question, whether 

 its origin be Latin or German." The great abundance of the plant in the middle and 

 the North of Europe would incline us rather to the latter as the likeliest, and it may 

 be a corruption of Saint Nicolas, called in German Nickel. Whatever its origin, the 

 name was understood in the Middle Ages as meaning " curative," and suggested many 

 proverbial axioms ; such as — 



" Celuy qui sanicle a, 

 De mire affaire il n'a." 



" He who keeps sanicle has no business with a doctor." 



Sanicula does not occur in classical Latin writers, and there is no such word as 

 sanis or sanicus, from which it could have been formed. But in favour of the deriva- 

 tion from St. Nickel is the wonderful tale of his havinsr interceded with God in favour 

 of the two children whom an innkeeper had murdered and pickled in a pork-tub, and 

 obtained their restoration to life and health. A plant named after this saint, and 

 dedicated to him, might very reasonably be expected to " make whole and sound all 

 wounds and hurts both inward and outward," as Leyte and other herbalists tell us of 

 the Sanicle. It was as a vulnerary that this plant gained its medical reputation. To 

 the taste it is very bitter and rough, and Sir James Smith entertained the idea that 

 it partook of the poisonous acridity which is so frequent in the Umbelliferae. 



