I860.] BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 63 



auglit I know, tlie leaves may contain a mucilage very agreeable in pottage 

 (like other pot-herbs, including Herb-John), but unless they are well 

 pounded and boiled, I think the prickles might be somewhat unpleasant to 

 the stomach. I have an impression that in early times the Ehn was called 

 Holm ; if so, the leaves of this tree might have been those which the Abbot 

 of Clairvaux used. Sir J. Mandeville says of the monks of Mount Sinai 

 " That they drink ne wine but zif it be on principalle festes, and they 

 lyven porely and sympely with joutes and with dates" (Voy. p. 71). The 

 metrical receipt in 'Liber Cure Cocomm,' Sloane MS., 1986, p. 97, gives a 

 list of pot-herbs for compounding joutes,- — •" Cole, borage, persyl, plumtre 

 leves, red nettel crop, malves grene, red brere cropps, avens, violet, and 

 pymi'ol." These were to be ground in a mortar and boiled in broth. 



S.B. 



Long-Purples of Shakspsare. 



E. M. A., in the ' Phytologist ' for December, 1859, says he never heard 

 of " Long-Purples " in any part of England, and he asks, " May not the 

 Lytlirum Salicaria be the true plant, as it is very common in Warwickshire, 

 and answers the name much better than any sort of Orchis?" If E. M. A. 

 wUl refer to the passage in ' Hamlet ' in which the Long-Purples is men- 

 tioned as forming a part of Ophelia's garland, he will find that Shakspeare 

 defines the plant by saying that ' liberal shepherds called it by a grosser 

 name,' and that ' cold maids did Dead Men's Fingers call them.' I am 

 not aware that the Lythrum Salicaria has any common names which 

 would agree with those belonging to Long-Purples, but I do know that the 

 latter has some other names which may be properly called gi'oss, and 

 which are given by our early wiiters on plants. 



I believe also that the Lytlirum Salicaria blossoms late in summer, 

 and would not be found in bloom with other flowers named in the garland 

 of Ophelia. I think also that its colom* is not strictly a purple, so much 

 as the early Purple Orchis is. 



Will E. M. A. be kind enough to inform us whether any one of the 

 Orchis tribe is called Dead Men's Eingers, in Warwickshire, or if he ever 

 heard the Arum maculatum called by these names or by the name of 

 Long-Purples ? S.B. 



Honey-stalks. 



In ' Titus Andronicus,' act iv. sc. 4, Tamora says : — 



" I will enchant the old Andronicus 

 With words more sweet and yet more dangerous 

 Than baits to fish or Honey-stalks to sheep ; 

 When as the one is wounded with the bait. 

 The other rotted with delicious feed." 



What plant is here meant by Honey-stalks ? S. B. 



Gold-flowers. *" 



With reference to your article on these flowers in the ' Phytologist ' of 

 September last, I beg to give you the following, taken from the 'Prompto- 

 rium Parvulonim :' — " Goolde Herbe. Solsequium, quia sequitur solem ; 

 Elitropium, Calendula." 



