COLUMBINE 215 



In the ancient forest laws of Howel Dda an ash-tree 

 is valued at fourpence, while a bough of mistletoe is 

 reckoned at thirty shillings, ninety times as much : we may 

 take it that nowadays this proportion is a good deal more 

 than reversed. About the only use that mistletoe can be 

 put to is to make bird-lime of it; but as we see in a book 

 before us that " it may very reasonably be doubted whether 

 any one was ever engaged in using that article whose time 

 could not have been better employed," an expression of 

 opinion that we entirely agree with, it is scarcely worth 

 while to give a receipt for its manufacture. 



COLUMBINE (Aquilegia Vulgaris) 



Plate XXXIII. brings before us the flowers, foliage, 

 and fruit of the Columbine. Its claim to be considered 

 indigenous has been questioned, but it is found set down 

 in Anglo-Saxon plant lists as the culfrewort, a word meaning 

 pigeon-plant ; .and a plant that can show a recognition and 

 descent from at least the days of Egbert has very fairly 

 made out its claim for recognition in our Flora. The term 

 indigenous is, after all, a very vague one. When England 

 was under glacial conditions, a state of things that many an 

 Ice-scored rock testifies to, or when England was under sub- 

 tropical conditions, a state of things that the coal-measures 

 clearly prove, was the columbine " in residence " ? If Noah 

 in his famous voyage had drifted out so far west as this 

 would he have found it ? If not, it] is, we presume, not 

 indigenous ! 



The whole plant is atfractlve, whether we look at its 



