112 CARYOPHYLLE^ 



wonder, then, that in days when men thought not of scientific names for the 

 flowers, ere as yet those affinities had been traced which enabled the botanist 

 to arrange and name them — no wonder that the English peasant, or the old 

 herbalist, or the resident of the monastery, gave to the flowers such simple 

 English names as linked them with nature, and serve even yet to awaken 

 pleasant memories. 



It is interesting to trace in the old names of our flowers the old modes of 

 thought and habits of life to which some of them point. The cuckoo was 

 evidently a favourite bird, for many a pretty flower yet bears its name. 

 There was the pungent cardamine of the fields and woods, which still has, 

 as well as the anemone, the name of Cuckoo-flower. Then we have this 

 brighu and ragged Lychnis, while the Cuckoo-buds of the old poets are 

 known to moderns as buttercups. There was the wood sorrel, which was 

 called Cuckoo's-meat, because, as Gerarde said, it came at the time when the 

 cuckoo might need it for food. There, too, is the Cuckoo-pint, which is still 

 a rustic name for the arum, and which may have been so called because its 

 half-folded vase-like leaf might hold some drop of dew or rain to refresh the 

 early bird ; or its name may be a corruption of Cuckoo-point, given because 

 the purple or green column in the centre of its leaves was growing when the 

 cuckoo was singing. 



Many another bird or mammal of the country was linked, too, with the 

 flowers in the names of these olden days. The Swallow-wort, fancied to 

 benefit the youngling swallow, and Hawk-weed, deemed good for the vision 

 of the birds of prey ; and Sheep's Scabious, and Bird's Cherry, and Duck- 

 weed, and Adder' s-meat, and Cow-berry, and Cow-wheat, and Dog's Mercury, 

 were, doubtless, all so named from their real or supposed uses. Many 

 flowers, too, suggested, in some part of their structure, some animal feature ; 

 thus Stork's-bill, Crane's-bill, Pheasant's-eye, Hare's-ear, Mouse-tail, Hound's- 

 tongue, Cat's-tail, Ox-eye, Ox-tongue, and Crow-foot, were so named from 

 blossom, or leaf, or seed-vessel ; while the entangling fil^res of the root of one 

 of the orchises suggested the name of Bird's-nest Orchis ; and one of the 

 velvety flowers of spring won for itself the name of Cowslip. Then there 

 was an association with the times and seasons in the names Wake-robin, 

 Day 's-eye. Winter-weed, May thorn, Lent-lily ; St. John's-wort, of Midsummer- 

 day, and St. Patrick's Cabbage, of St. Patrick's-day ; and Evening Primrose, 

 and Snow-drop, and Spring Cresses. The rustic list had its classic allusion 

 in the name of the Grass of Parnassus ; and its touches of sentiment in 

 those of the Forget-me-not, Pansy, Heartsease, True-love, and True-love- 

 knot ; while the Wayfaring-tree, and Traveller's Joy, and the Queen of the 

 Meadows, all remind us that those who so called them had an eye for the 

 beauty of the landscape and its vegetation. Poor Man's Weather-glass, 

 Shepherd's Needle, and Shepherd's Purse, all tell a tale of rural imaginations ; 

 while the old names of Fuller's Teasel, Fowler's Service, Dyer's Weed, Bed- 

 straw, Flee-bane, Dyer's Rocket, Glass-wort, are still records of old uses of 

 plants. The intercourse with foreign lands and the improvements in horti- 

 culture have so well filled our kitchen-gardens with a provision for the tables, 

 that Salad Burnet, Lamb's Lettuce, Sauce-alone, Hedge-mustard, Winter 

 Cresses, Poor Man's Pepper, and Corn-salad, grow now ungathered, and we 



