106 CARYOPHYLLE^ 



respects to the Soapwort. Beckmann, referring to the subject, says, "V\^e 

 may conjecture, with some probal^ility, that the plant called Gypsophila 

 siruihium by Linnaeus (which is also a plant of the Caryophyllaceous family) 

 is the struihiim of the ancients ; and it is still used for washing in the lower 

 part of Italy and Spain. This opinion acquires some strength by the plant 

 having been thus adopted among the Italians and Spaniards, and because, as 

 Pliny says, it grows on a rocky soil, and on the mountains. It is also still 

 called Lanaria by the Calabrian peasants. It has a tender stem ; its leaves 

 are so like those of the olive-tree, that they might be confounded with them 

 l»y those who are not botanists, and its root is large, but the plant is neither 

 rough nor prickly." Theophrastus and Pliny both describe the plant as 

 prickly, so that some difficulty occurs on this point, but Linnaeus felt quite 

 convinced that the Gypsophila furnished the soap of the ancients. Loffling, 

 who found this plant in the Spanish mountains, as well as in the neighbour- 

 hood of Aranjuez, relates, that in the province of La Mancha the people boil 

 clothes, that are to be washed, with its root, instead of soap. The juice of 

 our Common Soapwort is used in Italy for cleansing wool and cloth ; and in 

 the Helvetian Alps the sheep, before they are shorn, are washed with a 

 decoction of this plant ; and a preparation of its roots with a mixture of 

 ashes is commonly used there in washing linen. Gerarde tells us, that, in 

 former days, the plant was used in baths, "to beautifie and cleanse the 

 skin." One of its old names, also, was Fuller's herb. 



The saponine principle abounds in the fruit of the horse-chestnut, which 

 is still used in the south of Europe for washing various substances. It is 

 certain that the ancients not only used plants in washing, but that they 

 made soap, as we do in modern times, by a mixture of lixivious salts with 

 grease ; and that the mineral alkali of the people of Egypt was made in the 

 time of Pliny from the ashes of plants is pretty certain. A similar alkali 

 was used by the ancient Hebrews ; and when the prophet Jeremiah said, 

 " Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap (boriih)," the 

 latter material was doubtless then in use, and was probably the borak of the 

 Arab in the present day, which is procured from the ashes of the saltworts 

 of the desert, and other plants. Some species of the fig marigold are called 

 by these people the washing herbs. The nitre of the ancients was doubtless 

 an alkaline salt. 



The double variety of Soapwort is a pretty border plant, but it is incon- 

 venient on account of the spreading nature of its roots, which run under- 

 o-round like couch. Its flowers are like those of the wild species, of a pale 

 rose-colour. Our wild Soapwort blossoms in August and September, and 

 sometimes bears double flowers. It grows on a stem a foot or a foot and a 

 half in height, and the smooth leaves are of a dark glossy green. Its bitter 

 juices were formerly considered a good remedy for bruises, and it was called 

 Bruisewort ; the French call it La Savonnicre, and the Germans Das Seif en- 

 kraut. Its name of Sheepweed (Zeepkniid) points to its uses in Holland ; and 

 the Italians term it Saponaria, and the Spaniards Jahonero. The Sapionaria 

 vaccaria, a species found wild in Germany, is the celebrated Cow-herb, which 

 is so valued by the continental herdsmen as food for their cows. 



