96 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



Tliis well-known little plant is common on every bit of waste and uncultivated 

 ground throughout the world, and is found in every field and garden. When boiled, 

 it forms an excellent green vegetable resembling spinach in flavour, and is very whole- 

 some. Growing as it does at all seasons of the year, and very rapidly, it might well 

 supply a want, sometimes severely felt amongst the poor, of a variety of vegetable food. 

 But so great are the prejudices against any innovations in diet, that the most valuable 

 articles of food are frequently thrown away and destroyed as useless by those to whom 

 they might be of the utmost benefit. It is a favourite food with small birds and young 

 chickens j and the fact that it produces not less than seven or eight successive crops in 

 the year, renders the supply amply sufficient for their wants. The old herbalists con- 

 sidered Chickweed " cooling in virtue and operation." Gerarde says : " The leaves boiled 

 in vinegar and salt are good against manginesse of the hands and legs, if they be bathed 

 therewith. Little birds in cages, especially linnets, are refreshed with the Lesser 

 Chickweed when they loath their meat, whereupon it was called of some Passerina." 

 Chickweed was also made into a paste with barley-meal and water for inflammations 

 of the eyes; the juice was poured into the ears " agaynst the pain of them." "As a 

 poultice and a remedy for all inflammations," Chickweed had at one time a great repu- 

 tation also as a vulnerary. Its virtues are, however, entirely imaginary. Dr. Withering 

 observes that it is an instance of what is called the " sleep of plants ;" for every night 

 the leaves approach in pairs, so as to include within their upper surfaces the tender 

 rudiments of the new shoots ; and those of the uppermost pair but one at the end of the 

 stalk are furnished with longer leaf-stalks than the others, so that they can close upon the 

 terminal pair and protect the end of the branch. This curious phenomenon is doubtless 

 intended to secure from injury the delicate organs of fructification. Galen writes : 

 " The seed of the Stitchwort is sharpe and biting to him that tastes it, and to him that 

 useth it is very like to mUl." Old writers say : " They are wont to drinke it in wine 

 with the powder of acornes against the paine in the side, stitches, and such like." Hence 

 we suppose the common name has arisen. In old English this plant is also called the 

 " Hen's Inheritance." 



Section II.— HOLOSTEiE. Fenzl. 



Leaves rather rigid, sessile, connate at the base, narrowly 

 linear-lanceolate, tapering to the apex. Flowers large. Stamens 

 hypogynous, on a very slightly-developed disk. Capsule globular, 

 inflated. 



SPECIES IV.— S TELLARIA HOLOSTEA. Linn. 

 Plate CCXXX. 

 Meich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. V. Caryoph. Tab. CCXXIII. Fig. 4908. 



Rootstock perennial, with barren shoots. Stem erect. Leaves 

 all sessile, linear-lanceolate, very acute ; the lower ones crowded 

 and reflexed. Flowers in a dichotomous cyme, with herbaceous 

 bracts resembling the leaves. Sepals lanceolate-acute, with very 

 narrow scarious margins, very indistinctly 3-nerved. Petals usually 

 much longer than the sepals, divided to the middle into 2 rather 



