550 pfant Tsorc, TsegeT^/, oriel TsLjnc/", 



Calvary, bearing" his cross, he passed by the door of Veronica, a com- 

 passionate woman, who beholding with pity the Lord's distressed 

 condition, and the drops of agony on His brow, wiped His face with a 

 kerchief, or napkin, and the features of the Redeemer remained 

 miraculously impressed upon the linen. The kerchief itself was 

 styled the Stidarium, and from some resemblance of the blossom of 

 the Germander Speedwell to this saintly relic, bearing the features 



of Christ, the plant received the name of Veronica. Francus wrote 



an entire work on the virtues of the Veronica orientalis, which is said 

 to have cured a King of France of the leprosy and to have given 

 children to a barren wife. R. Turner calls the plant Fluellin, or 

 Lluellin — a name, he remarks, " the Shentleman of Wales have 

 given it because it saved her nose, which disease had almost gotten 

 from her." 



SPIGNEL. — Spignel (Meum athamanticum) is also known as 

 Mew, Bear-wort, or Bald-money. The latter name is of obscure 

 etymology, but we may safely rejecft the derivation which some 

 writers have suggested from the name of the god Baldr, the Scan- 

 dinavian Apollo. Spignel is held to be under the rule of Venus. 



(See Baldmoney). 



SPIKENARD.— We read in Canticles: "While the king 

 sitteth at his table, my Spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof." 

 And again: " Thy plants are an orchard of Pomegranates, with 

 pleasant fruits; Camphire, with Spikenard, Spikenard and Saffron." 

 The true nature of Spikenard has for ages been the subje(ft of much 

 controversy ; but it is now generally accepted that it was obtamed 

 from the Valeriana Jatamansi. Ptolemy notices these odoriferous 

 plants, the best of which grew at Rangamati, and on the borders of 

 the country now called Bootan. Pliny says there are twelve 

 varieties of it — the best being the Indian, the next in quality the 

 Syriac, then the Gallic, and in the fourth place, that of Crete. He 

 thus describes the Indian Spikenard : " It is a shrub with a heavy 

 thick root, but short, black, brittle, and yet unctuous as well; it 

 has a musty smell, too, very much like that of the Cyperus, with a 

 sharp acrid taste, the leaves being small, and growing in tufts. 

 The heads of the Nard spread out into ears; hence it is that Nard 

 is so famous for its two-fold producftion, the spike or ear, and the 

 leaf." The price of genuine Spikenard was then one hundred 

 denarii per pound, and all the other sorts, which were merely 

 herbs, were infinitely cheaper, some being only worth three denarii 

 per pound. Galen and Dioscorides give a somewhat similar 

 account of Spikenard or Nardostachys, but the latter states that 

 the so-called Syrian Nard came in reality from India, whence it 

 was brought to Syria for shipment. Mr. E. Rimmel, in his * Book 

 of Perfumes,' points out that " the ancients appear to have 

 confounded Spikenard with some of the fragrant Grasses of India, 

 which would account for the report that Alexander the Great, when 



