244 THE PLANTS OP THE EARLY POETS. [^AugUSt, 



(With us Wild Saffron), blistring, byting, fell ; 

 Hot Napell, making lips and tongue to swell ; 

 Blood-boyling Yew, and coative Misseltoe, 

 With ice-cold Mand/rake and a many mo 

 Such fatal plants, whose fruit, seed, sap, or root 

 T' untimely grave doe bring our heedless foot." 



In a late number of the ' Phytologist' you gave us tlie benefit 

 of Mr. M. F. Tupper's knowledge of the hidden uses of plants, 

 but nothing has come to light upon the subject. The above lines 

 are taken from J. Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas's ' Divine 

 Weeks/ p. 258 ; and, in my opinion, the poet of the sixteenth 

 century had a better knowledge of plants than our modern poet 

 Tupper. The sable Henbane I take to be Hyoscyamus niger ; 

 the Morell, the Annual Nightshade [Solanum nigum), called by 

 Cotgrave " Morelle furieuse ou manique, — mad, raging, or furious 

 Nightshade.^' The stiffening Carpese may be the same as Cot- 

 grave gives, viz. " Carpase : a certain plant, whose juice being 

 drank, procureth sleep, and in sleeping strangleth ; not mentioned 

 by modern herbarists." The Hemlock I take to be Conium ma- 

 culaium. The Psyllr/ I do not know. Does Napell mean the 

 Aconitmn Napellus ? and what is meant by Uood-hoijling Yew ? 

 With reference to Mandrake, I conclude the Atropa Mandragora 

 is meant, as it has properties cold in the third degree, as the old 

 writers tell us ; and it is also a herb of Saturn, according to the 

 astrological botanists. Is not the White Bryony called, in some 

 parts of England, Mandrake ? I think I have heard it so called 

 by the shepherds and carters. 



The following is in the second part of Turner's ' Herbal :' — 

 " Of Psillium, or Flea-seede, although I have seen this herb often 

 in Germany and in England, yet I never saw it grow wild, but 

 only in gardens ; but hitherto I could never learn the English or 

 Dutch name of it. It may be well called Flea-sede or Fleawurt, 

 because the sede is very like unto a flea. It is noticed as having 

 cooling properties ; and, according to Arabiones, ' all men must 

 take heed that they take not too much of it, for it will kill a man 

 as well as many other poisons do.' Galen says it is cold in the 

 second degree." 



It should be remarked that in the first lines there is men- 

 tioned the Cockle and also the Darnel, the latter being probably 

 the Lolium temulentum ; but I believe the latter was called also 

 Cockle by some of our early writers. S. B. 



