29 



flower is so named from its strong likeness to the conventional and 

 heraldic representations of the sun in its glory. 



There are two plants closely connected with the education of 

 youth which deserve a passing notics. The first is the Birch. 

 The word " birch" is the same word as harh, meaning first the rind of 

 a tree, and then a barque or boat, from which we also get our word 

 barge, and it carries us back to the time when the birch was one 

 of the most useful of trees, as it still is in most northern countries, 

 where it grows at a higher degree of latitude than any other tree. 

 Its bark was especially useful, being used for cordage and matting 

 and roofing, while the tree itself formed the early British canoes, 

 as it still forms the canoes of the North American Indians, for 

 which from its lightness it is well suited. We still admire its 

 graceful beauty and welcome its pleasant odour on our Eussia- 

 leather-bound books, but we have ceased to make beer from its 

 young shoots, and hold it altogether in as low repute, as the old 

 herbalist Turner, who says, " I have not red of any vertue it hath 

 in physik ; howebeit it serveth for many good uses, and for none 

 better than for betyinge of stubborn boys, that either lye or will 

 not learn."* So much for the birch ; the other plant I alluded to 

 is the Fennel. This name comes from its Latin name foeniculum, 

 but whether that comes from foenum, hay, from its supposed hay- 

 like smell, or from foenus, interest, from its rapid increase, ety- 

 mologists cannot tell us for certain. But in the South of Europe 

 the name of the giant fennel was Ferula, and the light dried stalks 

 of the fennel were used by the Roman schoolmasters as rods, and 

 so the word ferule was adopted into the English language for an 

 instrument of correction, as unlike a fennel rod as could well be 

 devised. Both the name and the instrument are now happily 

 exploded, but only recently ; for many of you, like myself, have 

 probably unpleasant recollections of it as a help in learning the 

 Latin gi'ammar. 



Let us turn to a pleasanter part of the subject. Of all English 

 plants there have been few in such constant favour as the Daffodil. 

 Whether known by its classical name of Narcissus, or by its more 



• Quoted from Turner in Johnston. 



