NETTLE TRIBE 133 



and it is believed quickly to rid the grain of this destructive insect. The 

 herb was formerly called Wall-wort. Gerarde says : " Some ca\\ it Penlkeum 

 of partridges, which sometimes feed hereon ; some Urccolarius and Viiraria, 

 because it serveth to scoure glasses, pipkins, and such like. In Spain they call 

 it Verba del muro." He adds that it is good for coughs. The French term 

 the plant La Parietaire, and the Germans, Das Glaskraut. It is the Glaskruid 

 of the Dutch, and the Noc i dzien of the Poles. Mr. Curtis remarks of this 

 herb, that the same degree of cold (31° Fahrenheit) which strips the mul- 

 berry of its leaves, will desti'oy the herbage of the Pellitory. 



3. Hop (Humulus). 



Common Hop (//. li'/jjulus). — Stems rough, long, and twining; 

 leaves opposite, stalked, 3 — 5-lobed, serrated, veiny, rough ; fertile flowers 

 in a catkin-like head ; barren flower of 5 segments and 5 stamens ; perennial. 

 Those who have dwelt or travelled in any of our Hop counties, as Kent, 

 Sussex, or Hereford, in the autumnal season, need not be reminded of the 

 beauty of the Hop-garden, or of its delicious fragrance. We have, in our 

 summer walk, many sweet scents wafted to us by the breeze from honey- 

 suckle hedges and flowering bean-fields, from the hay lying outsj)read on the 

 meadow, from blossoming broom and briar roses, or, stronger still, from 

 fields of lavender, which spring up to reward the grower's toil ; but not one 

 of the summer odours can equal that which, in September and October, fills 

 the Hop-garden with incense, and may be enjoyed long ere we approach its 

 bounds. It is a picturesque scene, too, when the tall plant, covered with its 

 golden cones, is gathered by the Hop-picker, and when we may see men, 

 women, and little children, working beneath the blue sky at their employ- 

 ment, while the cradled infant sleeps the sounder from the soothing influence 

 of the Hops which hang over its head. The toil is not a wearisome one, and 

 is lightened by the j)leasant air and social intercourse, while often among 

 those pickers may be found someone who has come hither from the distant 

 town to seek the long-lost health, and has found it here. 



Though the Hop under cultivation has several varieties, and the grower 

 in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey talks with enthusiasm of his Goldings, or White- 

 bines, or Grapes, or Colegates yet these have all originated from one species. 

 Some botanists doubt whether the Hop is really wild, and is not rather to be, 

 regarded as a plant long since naturalized in this country ; but Mr. Babington, 

 and many others, consider it as a true native in many parts of England, and 

 Dr. Bromfield thinks it indisputably indigenous to the southern counties. 

 In many parts of the kingdom, the wild Hop twines luxuriantly in woods 

 and hedges, interlacing the shrubs with its long stems, and hanging among 

 their boughs its wreaths of large rough leaves, and its fragrant cones. These 

 are smaller, and of a paler yellowish-green hue than those of the cultivated 

 Hop. They grow in little clusters during July, August, and September ; 

 while the barren flowers, which are of the same greenish tint, resemble the 

 blossoms of the currant-bush in form, but are not nearly so numerous in the 

 cluster. That the culti^•ated Hop was brought into the Hop-gardens of this 

 kingdom from the Low Countries, or from Artois, in the reign of Henry VIII., 

 is a well-known fact, and as the two old lines record — 



