24G LILIACEiE 



Of these most helpful herbs yet tell we but a few 

 To those unnumbered sorts of simples here that grew, 

 What justly to set down even Dodon short doth fall, 

 Nor skilful Gerarde yet shall ever find them all." 



The rootstock of the Common Solomon's Seal was, by the old writers, 

 frequently prescril^ed for a use which it still retains in country places : it is 

 applied for removing the blackness produced hy a bruise ; and wo have often 

 witnessed the success of the remedy. The Turks are said to eat these roots, 

 when prepared for the table ; and in times of scarcity they have been dried 

 and ground for flour. 



3. Angular Solomon's Seal (P. officinale). — Leaves egg-shaped, oblong, 

 half-clasping, alternate, light green and shining, somewhat leathery ; flowers 

 mostly solitary or two together. This species has an angular stem a foot or 

 a foot and a half high, and bears fragrant greenish-white flowers in May and 

 June. It is a very rare plant of some English woods, from Northumber- 

 land to Dorset and Somerset. 



6. SiMETHis {Simdfhis). 



Variegated Simethis {S. hkolor). — Leaves linear, grass-like, the upper 

 part keeled, the lower flat ; stem and leaves enclosed in sheathing scales ; 

 flowers in panicles ; rootstock of stout fibres. This beautiful little flower 

 was added to the British Flora little more than half a century ago, and 

 it has been found in two localities : the one near Bournemouth, Dorset ; 

 and the other on hills and by the sea-shore of Derrynane in Kerry. Its dis- 

 covery in a plantation of firs, chiefly of Pinus mariiima, was very interesting 

 to British botanists. Plants found for the first time in the neighbourhood of 

 the sea are readily considered as of accidental introduction by ballast or 

 other means ; but in this case, the remote and elevated spot on which the 

 flower was first seen renders this improbable ; though, as Sir William Hooker 

 and Dr. Arnott observe, its seeds might have been brousht thither amono: 

 the pine-seeds which were planted there. Miss Wilkins, the young lady who 

 first saw the plant in this place, says in a letter to the author : " I was visiting 

 Bournemouth in the July of 1847, and was delighted with the rich variety 

 and beauty of the wild flowers of that locality. While strolling through a 

 fir-plantation which skirts the cliffs, about two miles from Bournemouth on 

 the Poole side, I observed a lovely white flower, which bespangled the long 

 grass over a spot many yards in circumference. From my first glance at the 

 elegant little plant, with its delicate star-like blossoms, I felt assured that it 

 was something rare, though I little suspected that it would prove a discovery 

 of so much interest. A specimen was forwarded to Dr. Lindley, who informed 

 me that the flower was new in this country. The blossom itself very much 

 resembles that of the single-flowered yellow asphodel, both in its formation 

 and in its woolly stamens ; but the Simethis is white, delicately tinted with 

 lilac. Its stem is from one to two feet in height, and its root of fleshy fibres ; 

 the seeds are black." 



This lady adds, that the beautiful flower was again gathered from the spot 

 in the summers of 1848 and 1849. In June, 1854, the author of these pages 

 requested a friend to visit Bournemouth, in order to ascertain if the plant 



