120 CARYOPHYLLE.E 



We, in modern days, find no great remedial virtues in this herb, but our 

 forefathers recorded it as an effectual remedy against cramps, convulsions, 

 palsy, and various maladies. " Boil a handful of Chickweed," says one old 

 herbalist, " and a handful of red-rose leaves dried, in a quart of muscadine, 

 until a fourth part be consumed :" oil of sheep's feet was to be added, and 

 the "grieved place" anointed therewith. One can imagine from the nature 

 of some of the ingredients, that the sufferer might find relief from pain by 

 this application, but it was not completed without binding some of the 

 Chickweed over the part affected, which if done would, as the director adds, 

 " with God's blessing, cure the malady in three times the dressing." 



2. Greater Stitchwort, Satin-flower, or Adder's Meat (*S'. hoUstea). 

 — Stem nearly erect, Avith four distinct angles, rough edged; leaves very 

 narrow, tapering to a long point, delicately fringed ; j)etals twice as long as 

 the calyx, and cleft to the middle ; calyx without nerves. Plant perennial. 

 There is beauty on the earth in every season of the year, in some part or 

 other of the landscape. The leafless woods of winter, with their crimson 

 berries lingering yet, and their boughs sparkling with the frost, and beautiful 

 in their varied outline and their emerald mosses, which half disclose some 

 crimson or orange fungus, — have their beauties to offer to the wanderer 

 there. The golden corn-field, with the bearded grain, doing obeisance to 

 the passing wind, and reminding us of the wind-swept ocean, has its chief 

 loveliness of flowers in the autumn, when the crimson poppy, the yellow 

 charlock, the corn-cockles, and the blue starry succory and lilac scabious 

 contrast with the corn. The heath-land has its glory in summer-time, when 

 it is rich in its fragrant furze and broom, and branching ling, and purple 

 and rose-coloured heather flowers, and nodding blue-bells ; and when the 

 linnet is yet singing among the furze tops, and the goldfinch comes thither 

 to pick the thistle-down, and the bee and butterfly are there in search of 

 nectar. May and June are the months in which the meadows are most 

 lovely, when the tall grass waves gracefully by the gold cups, and when 

 thousands of silvery daisies glitter beside the blue speedwells, while the 

 scented honeysuckles and brier-roses are unfolding. May is the loveliest 

 season for the woodlands ; which are, however, more or less lovely in every 

 changing season. We lose some of the graceful forms of the boughs as they 

 may be seen in full outline in winter, for green leaves are thickening fast 

 upon them, nor is the gxeen tint, though gay, so deep and varied as are the 

 hues of July, or the autumnal touches of the brown October. Here and 

 there some dark-green holly or darker yew contrasts with it, or a gleam of 

 sunshine gives some bough a deeper yellow ; yet now, elm and oak, and 

 birch and hawthorn, have almost all the same pale and delicate verdure which 

 tells of youth and spring. It is now that the flowers of the Avood are in 

 fullest perfection ; and should our footsteps traverse those paths three 

 months later, though fields and meadows are still rich and gay, yet the 

 flowers of the Avood will be comparatively few. The golden-rod may be 

 there, and the magnificent foxglove, but all the wealth of anemones, and 

 primroses, and violets, and hyacinths, and orchises, will have long since 

 passed away. It is when these flowers are all in perfection that we see the 

 delicate white blossoms of the Stitchwort gleaming among them, too large 



