COMPOUND FLO WEES 171 



ancients among the flowers with which they decked the images of their gods ; 

 and it is not unlikely that the Everlastings were also placed about the tombs, 

 though we know that purple and white floAvers were anciently believed to 

 be most acceptable to the dead. In Spain and Portugal these Immortelles 

 are still used to decorate altars and images ; but neither there nor in France, 

 nor in the bouquet which often decks the English mantelpiece, are they left 

 to their own natural beauty — the pale yellow flowers being often stained with 

 green, black, or orange colour, and thus becoming strangely artificial in their 

 appearance. In France many families are supported by staining these flowers 

 and making them up into garlands and crosses. 



It is not known at what period this African Cudweed first appeared in 

 England. Gerarde says that it was brought hither in a dried state in his 

 day ; and it appears from Parkinson that it was well known in England about 

 twenty years after the publication of Gerarde's celebrated Herbal. Gerarde 

 calls it Golden Motherwort, and says of the flowers that " they are on the 

 top of a long stalke, joyned together in tufts of a yellow colour, glittering 

 like golde, in forme resembling the scalie flowers of tansie." He says that 

 " being gathered before they be ripe, they remaine beautiful a long time, as 

 my self e did see in the handes of Master Wade, one of the Clerkes of hir 

 Majestie's Counsell, which was sent him among other things from Padua, in 

 Italic." 



3. Marsh Cudweed {G. uligindsum). — Stem spreading, much branched, 

 woolly ; leaves narrow, lanceolate, and downy ; heads in dense tufts, which 

 are shorter than the leaves ; annual. This is a common species, inhabiting 

 sandy places, or spots where water has stood. It is a small plant, rarely 

 more than three or four inches high, its stem and foliage white with 

 cottony down. In August and September the heads of flowers grow two or 

 three together, among the crowded leaves : their scales are glossy and chaffy, 

 and yellowish-brown. 



4. Dwarf Cudweed (G. supinum). Stem, prostrate, branching only 

 from the base ; flowering stems bearing from one to five flowers ; leaves 

 narrow and tufted; perennial. There are two varieties of this plant, in 

 one of which the heads are stalked and rather distant ; in the other, they 

 are sessile and close together. The species is abundant on Highland 

 mountains, and is usually about two or three inches high, its flowering stems 

 almost bare of leaves. The yellowish flowers appear in July and August. 



33. FiLAGO (Fihigo). 



1. Narrow-leaved Filago (F. gdllica). — Stem erect, forked; leaves 

 narrow and pointed ; heads crowded in axillary and terminal tufts, which are 

 shorter than the leaves ; involucres broad at the base, the outer scales 

 cottony, with bluntish, smooth points ; annual. This plant, which is found, 

 though veiy rarely, on sandy and gravelly fields, has small oblong heads of 

 flowers in leafy clusters on a slender leafy stem about six inches high. The 

 leaves, which narrow upwards from the base, are upright, and finally turn 

 back. The florets are yellowish. The plant has been found at Berechurch, 

 in Essex, at one or two places in Kent, in Herts, Bucks, and the Channel 



Islands. 



22—2 



