I860.] BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 191 



MillefoUnm, commonly called Sneezewort. There is no reason for selecting 

 this plant to go on a message to the flowers, but that its name has been 

 supposed to be derived from arrow, being held a remedy for healing 

 wounds inflicted by that weapon." As there is no reference given by 

 Warton to any authority for the name of Arrow, or the peculiar healing 

 properties of the Yarrow, will you or soiae of your readers be kind enough 

 to enlighten me on this subject ? H. B. 



Pliny tells us that the name AcliUleos was given to the plant because 

 Achilles cured the wound of Prince Telephus with it. 



Urtica pilulifera, L. {Roman or Pill-bearing Nettle). 



Grows at Gosport, somewhere in the way to Gomer Pond. The seeds 

 are sold by London seedsmen under the name of Eoman Nettle, I am told, 

 for some medical (medicinal) purposes, though what that is I am unable 

 to learn, as this plant does not form an officinal article in any of our 

 Loudon pharmacopoeias ; nor is it Avorth cultivating for ornament. The 

 knowledge of this fact favours a suspicion I have always entertained, that 

 U. pilulifera has in all its British stations originated from the gardens of 

 the growers of simples. — Bromjield's Flora Vectensis. 



Bows OF Yew, etc. 



By Act 5 Edw. IV. ch. 4, eveiy Englishman was obliged to have a 

 bow in his house of his oxen length, made either of Yew, Wych Hazel, Ash, 

 or Aioburn. I wish to know xfhat wood is here meant by Awlmrn. By a 

 statute of the 8th of Elizabeth (1565) bowyers were directed to have in 

 their houses, each fifty bows, made of Elm, Wych Hazel, or Ash. 



S. B. 

 On Woods used for Bows. 



A correspondent desires to know (see supra) what Avond is meant by 

 Awhurn, of which bows were made in Elizabeth's reign, and probably be- 

 fore that period. Cytisus Laburnum is named in Scotland Hobburn Saugh, 

 and probably the plant or tree was originally introduced from France ; the 

 name certainly was. Du Hamel (see infra*) supposes that the name is 

 derived from Laburnum, and it is not improbable tliat this term is derived 

 from arbor, a tree. There is no doubt of its being used for bows in later 

 times, for Matthiolus says it was then the best wood for this purpose. It 

 is mentioned by Theocritus, Virgil, and Pliny. The first states that goats 

 ate its shoots ; Virgil, that it increased their milk ; and PLiny says it is 

 common on the Alps and rare in Italy. 



Answers to Queries. 

 In ' Phytologist ' for January last, there were some observations on 

 another form of Prunella vulgaris, by ' Stigma.' Many years ago I found 



* From Loudon's ' Arboretum,' etc., rol. ii. p. 590 : — " The name of I'Aubours, 

 which is given to this tree in Dauphine and Switzerland, is suppose by Du Hamel 

 to be a corruption of the Latin Lahitrnum. The word arbois is a corruption of 

 arcbois, the wood of this tree having been used by the ancient Gauls to make their 

 bows, and being still so employed by the country people, where these bows are 

 found to preserve their strength and elasticity during half a century." 



