16-1 TALKS AFIELD. 



porcellcma. When Marco Polo returned 

 from his wonderful travels to the far East 

 near the close of the thirteenth century, he 

 could find no name so appropriate for the 

 beautiful pottery which he had found in 

 China as porcellana^ the sea-shell. The 

 word became familiar as Marco Polo's ad- 

 ventures became widely known, and we still 

 know this fine pottery as porcelain. It is 

 probable that the plant portulaca, or purs- 

 lane, was then cultivated as a salad plant, as 

 it is to day by the French. The plant was 

 surely familiar, while its Latin name was 

 probably less so, for this name became con- 

 founded with the like-sounding porcellana 

 which finally descended to the plant: the in- 

 significant waif of the gardens became indel- 

 ibly associated with the sea-shell and the 

 beautiful dishes ! 



The name huckleberry, which is applied in- 

 discriminately at the West to several species 

 of Yaccinium and Gaylussacia, is evidently 

 a corruption of whortleberry. Whortleberry 

 is in turn a corruption of myrtleberry. In 

 the Middle Ages the true myrtleberry was 

 largely used in cookery and medicine, but 

 the European bilberry or vaccinium so 

 closely resembled it that the name was trans- 



