62 UMBELLIFER^ 



of its frequent culture in gardens in earlier times. It cannot be overlooked, 

 for it is a tall arid handsome plant, about three or four feet high, with a 

 remai'kably smooth stem. The leaves are of bright glossy green, and it 

 bears umbels of white flowers in July. 



Our ancestors prized this Angelica very highly, and its leaf-stalks were 

 very commonly blanched and eaten with bread and butter as celery, or the}' 

 were dried and preserved with sugar to form the sweetmeat called candied 

 angelica. In Iceland, Siberia, Norway, and Lapland, this plant is still 

 greatly valued as an article of food, and it is very abundant in the north of 

 Europe. The Laplanders, who eat it in various ways, and season dishes 

 with it, give it so many names as quite to perplex the stranger ; and in 

 some countries it is frequently called by a name signifying the Holy Ghost. 

 Its names throughout Europe show the high opinion entertained of this 

 aromatic plant, and the belief in its "Angelic " virtues. It is the Angdique of 

 the French; the Angelica, or Engelwiirz, of the Germans ; the Engelwortel of the 

 Dutch ; and the Angelica of the Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, and Russians. 



It is not only as food but as medicine that the Angelica was and still is 

 valued. It is doubtless carminative and stimulant. The Laplanders believe 

 of this plant, as the Highlanders do of the lovage, that the use of it will 

 lengthen life, and they therefore chew it as they would tobacco. They 

 also mix it with their bread, both because they like its flavour, and consider 

 it a preventive of disease. In our own country it was believed to have 

 wonderful efficacy against pestilence and a variety of disorders. Parkinson 

 says of it, " Having showed you all the herbes that are most usually planted 

 in kitchen gardens for ordinarie uses, let me now adde some others that are 

 also noursed up by many in their gardens to preserve health, to cure such 

 small diseases as are often within the compasse of the gentlewomen's skill, 

 who to helpe their own family and their poor neighbours that are farre re- 

 mote from Physitions and Chirurgeons, take much pains both to doe goode 

 unto them, and to plant those herbes that are conducing to their desires. 

 Angelica, the garden kinde, is so goode an herbe that there is no part 

 thereof but is of much use, and all cordiall and preservatives from infectious 

 or contagious diseases, whether you will distill the water of the herbe, or 

 preserve or candie the greene stalkes or rootes, or use the seedes in powder 

 or distillations or decoctions Avith other things." In France, even of late 

 years, the root of Angelica has been prescribed by good authorities as a 

 remedy in diseases of the chest and of sore throat ; it was also popularly 

 believed to avert hydrophobia, as well as to remove the eflfects of intoxica^ 

 tion. A plant so universally esteemed of course became allied to some 

 superstitious practices. Thus we find Coles, in his " Art of Simpling," re- 

 marks, " that if one hang Miseltoe about his neck the witches can have no 

 power of him. The roots of Angelica doe likewise availe much in the 

 same case, if a man carry them about him, as Fuchsius saith." 



2. Wild Archangel {A. sylvhtris).- — Stem furrowed ; leaves twice pin- ' 

 nate; leaflets egg-shaped, often somewhat heart-shaped at the base, and 

 serrated ; umbels large. Plant perennial. This is a large and noble plant, 

 commonly attaining, in wet places, the height of three or four feet, and in 

 some places rising to that of eight or ten feet. Its stem is of a purplish 



