46 CEUCIFER^ 



is known in country places almost throughout Europe. The French call it 

 Bourse de Pasteur ; the Spanish, JJolsa de Pastor. It grows abundantly about 

 the ruins of the ancient city, and the Roman peasant calls it, too, Borsa de 

 Pastor. It was known to our forefathers by the name of St. James's Weed, 

 and Poor Man's Parmacetie ; the latter alluding to the medicinal virtues 

 which Lightfoot says were formerly thought " good " for external and 

 internal maladies of man or beast. It was in those days boiled and eaten as 

 greens, and is still sold in the markets of some North Amei-ican cities. The 

 plant is truly cosmopolite ; and the traveller, when he sees little else to 

 remind him of his native soil, can generally find the Shepherd's Purse. 

 Fortune, in his "Wanderings in China," thus remarks of the vegetables 

 which crowd the stands in front of the shops of Shanghai. " Besides the 

 more common kinds," he says, "the Shepherd's Purse and a species of 

 Trefoil, or Clover, are used among the natives here ; and really these things, 

 when properly cooked, particularly the latter, are not bad." As to the 

 remedial virtues of the plant, we know of none in modern days, except the 

 antiscorbutic properties which this contains in common with all the cruci- 

 form plants, though in less degree than many. The old herbalists certainly, 

 however, discovered many hidden virtues in vegetables ; and though they had 

 various fanciful notions respecting them, yet they were right in their opinions 

 concerning some which are now altogether disused and overlooked. They 

 were often very patient investigator's, though few, perhaps, were so diligent 

 in making experiments as was Conrad Gesner, who used to eat small portions 

 of wild herbs, and to test personally their effects on the system, l)y sitting 

 down to his study with their leaves or flowers bound about him, to see how 

 they Avould affect his constitution. By these means he accumulated a 

 luimber of isolated facts, from which botanists in later days have been able 

 to generalize. 



3. HUTCHINSIA (Ilidchinsia). 



Rock Hutchinsia (H. petrcea). — Leaves pinnate, entire; petals 

 scarcely longer than the calyx ; pouch blunt at both extremities ; stigma 

 sessile. Plant annual. This is a pretty delicate little plant, from two to 

 four inches high, which in March and April has small clusters of minute 

 white flowers. It grows on limestone rocks in several parts of England and 

 Wales, and has been found on the wall of Eltham Church, in Kent, where it 

 is believed to have been planted by Dillenius, the friend of Linnseus, and 

 author of the 'Hortus Elthamensis.' The flattened oblong pods do not 

 exceed a line in length, and contain but two pale seeds in each cell. 



4. TeesdAlia. 



Naked-stalked Teesdalia {T. nudicaulis). — Petals unequal; leaves 

 almost all growing around the root, pinnatifid. Plant annual. This neat 

 little plant has small corymbs of white flowers in May ; the leaves form 

 a rosette around the root, and are closely pressed to the ground. It grows 

 on dry banks. Mr. Robert Teesdale, after whom it was named, Avas the 

 author of a Catalogue of the Plants growing about Castle Howard, in the 

 North Riding of Yorkshire, which was published in the ' Transactions of the 

 Linnean Society.' 



