CEOWFOOT TRIBE 9 



and concealed beneath the helmet-shaped sepal ; carpels 3 — 5. Name of un- 

 certain origin. 



14. Bane-berry (.^r/(m).— Sepals 3 — 5, soon falling ofi"; petals 4 — 10; 

 fruit a many-seeded berry. Name from the Greek akU, the Elder, the leaves 

 somewhat resembling those of that plant. 



15. Peony {PcBonia). — Sepals 5, unequal; petals 5 — 10; carpels 2 — 5, 

 with fleshy stigmas, formed of two plates. Name from Pa'on, a Greek 

 physician, who is said to have healed wounds with the plant. 



1. Traveller's Joy (Ch'mafis). 



Traveller's Joy (C. vitdlba). — Stem climbing, leaves pinnate, leaflets 

 ovate, and heart-shaped at the base; foot-stalks of leaves twining; flower- 

 stalks rather shorter than the leaves. Plant perennial. This beautiful shrul), 

 with its dark-green foliage, and its numerous blossoms of greenish-white hue, 

 is very common in the hedges in those counties where chalk or limestone 

 abounds. Gerarde well named it the Traveller's Joy, for it may be seen far 

 away, decking the hedges, in June and July, with its blossoms, and holding 

 itself to the stronger plants near it by the twisting leaf-stalks which serve as 

 tendrils. In the early part of the winter its snowy tufts of seeds are very 

 conspicuous, and as they become soiled by wind and weather, they look like 

 masses of cobwebs. 



This Clematis is our only British species, though similar kinds abound in 

 the woods of warmer regions of the globe, spangling the forests of America 

 and New Zealand, like those of Australia, with thousands of silver stars. 

 Though our native kind is almost scentless, many of the species are ex- 

 quisitely fragrant — the sweet-scented Virgin's Bower of our garden (Clematis 

 fldmmula) being very much so. 



The plants of this genus are all acrimonious. Of the scented garden 

 kind. Miller remarks, " if one leaf be cropped on a hot day in the summer 

 season, and bruised, and presently put to the nostrils, it will cause a smell 

 and pain like a flame." Our native species is corrosive, but its acrid principle 

 is destroyed either by the withering influence of the sun, or b}'' infusing the 

 plant in boiling water. The fresh leaves are said to be used by beggars to 

 cause wounds, in order to excite compassion ; hence the French sometimes 

 term this shrub Herhe mix gueux, though they also call it by the more pleasing 

 names of Consolation des voyageurs, and Viorne des jMuvrcs. It is undoubtedly 

 poisonous in its fresh state ; but the leaves of this plant are said, when dried, 

 to form good fodder for cattle, and they were once used in medicine. The 

 iiollow stem, when old, is cut into small pieces by the German shepherds, and 

 smoked for pipes, the acrid flavour of the wood being fancied somewhat to 

 resemble that of tobacco. Kentish schoolboys use the stem in the same way ; 

 and in France these long stems are woven into rustic baskets and bee-hives. ' 

 The seeds are very numerous, and easily dispersed by means of their feathery 

 crown ; and as they retain their germinating principle for a great length of 

 ' time, the plant is sometimes more abundant in the hedge than the farmer 

 would desire, as it suffocates the bushes among which it climbs. Country 

 people call it AYithywind, Wild Vine, Old Man's Beard, and Virgin's Bower ; 

 but Gerarde's name, given it from " decking and adorning waies and hedges 



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