PRIMROSE TRIBE 77 



blue colour. It occurs commonly in Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden ; and 

 in this kingdom is frequent in Devonshire and Gloucestershire, and found 

 also in some parts of Surrey, Cambridgeshire, and other counties. The 

 varieties are by some good botanists thought to be probably distinct species, 

 but Professor Henslow's experiments on the flower would lead to a different 

 conclusion. This botanist, who received specimens and seeds of Amigallis 

 crerulea from Yorkshire, raised from the seeds about a dozen plants, nine of 

 which had blue and three red flowers. He received also a pale pinkish 

 variety from Higham, in Kent, and seeds fi'om Yorkshire of the Avhite variety 

 with a purple eye. From these seeds he raised seven plants, one of which 

 produced red, and the other six white blossoms, tinged more or less with 

 light pink, and having a bright pink eye. Mr. Borrer suspects that the 

 Pimpernel in each variety has sometimes blue and sometimes red flowers. 



Our Common Pimpernel grows everywhere — on sunny bank, on gravelly 

 or sandy heath, in the furrow of the field, or on the bed of the garden. 

 Dioscorides and Pliny had much to say of its excellence as a medicine in liver 

 complaint ; and from its use in removing the dispirited feelings so consequent 

 on that malady, they tell how it gained its scientific name from anagalao, to 

 laugh ; but the name is more likely to be, as Sir W. J. Hooker considered it, 

 from the Greek words signifying " again " and to " adorn," because it comes 

 every summer to grace our pathways. Our fathers' idea of its efficacy was 

 greatl}^ overrated. " It is," says an old writer, " a gallant solar herb, of a 

 cleansing, attractive quality, whereby it draweth forth thorns and splinters, 

 or other such like things gotten into the flesh." This power of drawing 

 forth, not only thorns, but even " arrows which were broken in the flesh," 

 was universally ascribed to the plant, and led some botanists to think that 

 the genus was named from anago, to extract, which, however, is scarcely 

 probable. The bruised leaves formed the application in these cases, and were 

 believed also to cure persons bitten by a mad dog. The distilled juice was 

 said by an old herbalist to be much esteemed "by French dames to cleanse 

 the skin from any roughness, deformity, or discolourings thereof." Gerarde 

 affirmed that "it helped them that are dim-sighted." The Greeks and 

 Romans used the juices of the plant, mixed with honey, for complaints in the 

 eyes ; and so many Avere the cures eficcted by this little plant that an old 

 proverb, once in familiar use among our fathers, is thought by John Ra}'^ 

 probably to refer to the imputed virtues of the Pimpernel : — 



"The dasnel dawcock sits among the doctors." 



Several old medical writers of good repute had great confidence in cures 

 M'hich they had wrought in diseases of the brain by means of the juices of 

 this flower ; and we might cite half a dozen Avell-known authors who, like 

 Ettmiiller, highly extol its efficacy in hypochondriasis and similar maladies. 

 Professor Linclley says, " It has had some reputation in cases of madness, 

 and appears to possess energetic powers, for Orfila destroyed a dog by making 

 him swallow three drachms of extract of the plant." A similar result was 

 obtained by Grenier, and in our own times the plant has been jJi^escribed in 

 cases of epilepsy and dropsy. 



Both the Blue and the Scarlet Pimpernels were known to ancient writers, 



