86 pPant bore, hzQerpf, anii. bLjnc/, 



chievous tendencies. The acrid milk or sap extracted from the 

 Euphorbia has, from its poisonous quahties, obtained the name of 

 Devil's Milk. The poisonous Puff-balls (Lycoperdon) are called 

 Devil's Snuff-boxes, on account of the dust or particles they contain, 

 which have long borne an ill name. Gerarde says that " it is very 

 dangerous for the eies, for it hath been often scene that divers have 

 beene pore-blinde ever after when some small quantitie thereof 

 hath beene blowne into their eies." The Fungus Exidia glandulosa 

 (Witches' Butter) is known in Sweden as the Devil's Butter. 



Although the Devil extends his authority over so many 

 plants, it is satisfactory to know that the St. John's Wort is a 

 dispeller of demons (Fuga da;niomini), and that there is in Russia 

 a plant called the Devil-chaser. Prof. De Gubernatis tells us 

 that he has received from the Princess Galitzin Prazorova the 

 following particulars of this plant, which is known as Certagon. 

 It grows in meads and woods, is somewhat thorny, and bears a 

 deep-blue flower. It protects infants from fright, and drives away 

 the Devil. Sometimes the plant is boiled in water, and the 

 children are bathed in it. At other times the plant is merely 

 placed in the cradle. If mourners are prostrated with grief and 

 the recollection of the departed one (which is simply a visitation 

 of the Devil) it is only necessary to hold up a sprig of the mystic 

 Certagon, when the excessive grief will be assuaged, and the Devil 

 will be compelled to flee. The best way to exorcise an evil spirit 

 from the dead is to sit on the pall, to chew some seeds of Camphor 

 while combing the hair of the corpse, and finally to wave aloft the 

 Certagon — the Devil-chaser. 



RoxioU(i>, ©eac^f^>/, al^t) (iff-©merieil_ ^faatft). 



Prof. De Gubernatis remarks that "there are good and bad 

 herbs, and good and bad plants : the good are the work of Ormuzd, 

 the bad the work of Ahriman." All these bad herbs, plants, and 

 trees, noxious, poisonous, and deadly — the dangerous classes in 

 the vegetable kingdom — are of evil augury, and belong to the 

 category of Plants of the Devil. 



There are many trees and plants which emit emanations highly 

 injurious, and in some cases fatal to life. Perhaps the most 

 notorious of these is the deadly Upas, which rises in the ' Valley of 

 Death ' in Java, where it is said to blight all neighbouring vegeta- 

 tion, and to cause the very birds that approach it in their flight 

 to drop down lifeless. No animal can live where its baneful 

 influence extends, and no man durst approach its pestilential 

 shade. 



The Strychnos Tiente is the plant which yields the Upas Tiente, 

 one of the Javanese poisons ; it contains strychnia, and is as deadly 

 as strychnine itself. The Upas Antiar is another Javanese poison — 

 a bitter, milky juice, which acts violently on the heart. 



