266 BORAGINE^ 



Bacon, referring to this plant, says, " If the leaf of Burrage be infused 

 long it yieldeth forth but a raw substance of no virtue : therefore suppose 

 if in the must of wine or wort of beer, while it worketh, before it be 

 tunned, the Burrage stay a short time, and be often changed with fresh, it 

 will make a sovereign drink for melancholy passion." Pliny had long before 

 said, that wine in which the plant was infused produced very exhilarating 

 eftects; and many writers think that the word hoi-ago is a corruption of 

 corago ; from cor, the heart, ago, to bring. Whether the name of Borage was, 

 however, originally applied to this plant, may be doubted. Beckmann, who 

 has a learned disquisition on the subject, after remarking that since the 

 fourteenth or fifteenth century it had been sown for its various uses in 

 cooking, says, " This plant was not known to the ancients ; for the conjecture 

 that it is what they called higlossum is not very probable. As far as I have 

 been able to learn, Nicholas Myrepsus, who lived, in the beginning of the 

 fourteenth century, is the first who uses the [Greek] name pourakmi, which 

 certainly means borago But who knows whence this writer, who introduces 

 in his work a great many new, inexplicable names, some of them formed from 

 the Greek, Latin, or Italian, obtained that appellation? Some of the old 

 botanists have conjectured that it is derived from the word corago, which 

 Apuleius, whose period is uncertain, gives as a synonym of Imglossum. Some 

 think that the reading in Apuleius ought to be horago, and others assert that 

 corago is the true name, and arose from the quality which the plant has of 

 strengthening the heart ; consequently we ought properly to read corago, and 

 not borago. It is probable that our forefathers, under the impression that 

 their Borage was the buglossum of the ancients, and therefore had the 

 property of strengthening the heart, threw the flowers into wine, that their 

 spirits might by these means be more enlivened. Our Borage is certainly 

 a foreign plant, and Ccesalpinus says that it was brought from other countries 

 into Italy. Linnseus positively states that it first came from Aleppo , but I 

 have not yet been able to find on what authority this assertion was founded. 

 At present, at least in the German cookery, Borage is no longer used " 



The stems contain nitre, and the whole plant readily gives its flavour 

 even to cold water. The French call the plant Bourrarhe ; the Germans, 

 Borago , the Dutch, Bernagie ; the Italians, Borragine ; and the Spaniards, 

 Bmraja 



10. Madwort {Asperigo). 



German Madwort {A. procumbens). — Stems angular, prostrate, rough 

 with prickles ; leaves oblong, somewhat lanceolate ; lower ones stalked. This 

 little prostrate annual plant is less frequent in Britain than in most European 

 countries ; for though bearing the name of German Madwort, it is found 

 almost all over Europe, from Lapland to the Mediterranean. It grows on 

 waste places, chiefly in the north of this kingdom, as in various parts of 

 Durham and Northumberland ; but it is an introduced plant, and it occurs 

 very sparingly. It is peculiarly rough in all its parts, its angular stems 

 being thickly set with hooked prickles. Sometimes the leaves are solitary, 

 or they are opposite, or they grow in little tufts. The solitary, small, but 

 bright flowers appear in June and July, and peep from the axils of the upper 



