1089 



the seeds of primeval crops to be preserved intact until accident shall 

 bring them up and within the influence of vivifying agents. There is a 

 far-distant antiquity even in one of its provincial names. In the 

 neighbourhood of Gordon I heard this weed called Cockeno, — evi- 

 dently from ' coch,' the Celtic for scarlet, and hence the name is pro- 

 bably coeval with the early inhabitation of the district. In other parts 

 of Derbyshire the plant is called Cock's-combs. About Wooler it was 

 wont to be called the Thunder-flower, or Lightnings ; and children 

 were afraid to pluck the flower, for if, perchance, the petals fell off" in 

 the act, the gatherer became more liable to be struck with lightning ; 

 nor was the risk small, for the deciduousness of the petals is almost 

 proverbial. ' And it is called Papaver erraticum in Latin, in Greek, 

 Rhceas, because the flour falleth away hastily.' Turner. — When 

 cultivated, it becomes a beautiful annual. ' In hortis, ubi florum 

 colore pulcherrime ludit, nempe rainiato, sanguineo, purpureo, cameo, 

 niveo toto, cameo per limbum albo, &c.' Haller, Flor. Jenen. p. 70." 

 —P. 30. 



The following extract is only a portion of the observations under 

 Cardamine pratensis. It is copied because we consider it botani- 

 cally valuable. 



" Cardamine pratensis. In autumn little bunches of leaves may 

 be seen often to grow from the upper surface of the old but perfectly 

 fresh leaves, each bunch throwing out a radical fibre that creeps along 

 in search of a soil proper to take root in. These parasitical bunches 

 are young plants, and will detach themselves either when the root- 

 fibre has reached the soft ground, or when the parent leaf has decayed." 

 —P. 33. 



The following learned remarks on the metamorphosis of cereals will 

 not be read without a smile at the hypothesis of the vestigians. 



" Agrostemma Githago = Lychnis Githago = Githago segetura, 

 Don, Gard. Diet. i. 417. — Corn Cockle : Popple or Pawple. — Corn- 

 fields, a showy but noxious weed ; and hence its name is often used 

 figuratively in composition. ' Some have made virginity the corn, and 

 marriage the cockle.' Fuller, Ch. Hist. i. p. 294. 



' Good seed degenerates, and oft obeys 

 The soil's disease, and into cockle strays.' 



Donne. 



Donne, in this couplet, asserts a metamorphosis, the reality of which 

 our early herbalists never doubted. Wheat, they believed, sown in 

 sour land became rye in the second year, and two years after went 



