96 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



as it still is in many parts of the Highlands. Another 

 lichen made what John called a " fool fite," that is, a foul 

 or dirty white. 



As examples of the picturesque bits of associations he 

 had about plants: The Lousy eajrthnut(untumjkxit0sitm), 

 which is dug up by boys for its sweet, knotted root, he said 

 was a good food and could sustain life ; and he used to tell 

 a story of the Danes surrounding a party of Scots in a bog, 

 and trying to starve them into surrender, in vain, for 

 the Scotch leader showed his soldiers how to dig up these 

 roots, which supported them till the enemy thought them 

 sustained by magic or heavenly aid, and went off. The 

 spotted persicaria (Polygonum persicarid) he knew the usual 

 legend of, which says that the purple spot on its leaf was 

 the sacred blood that dropped on it as it grew under the 

 cross ; but he used also to tell another about it, that it was 

 the leaf Cain " dichtit (or cleaned) his ringers on " after 

 murdering his brother ! The aspen, he said, shivered as it 

 does, because it was the wood that formed the hated cross ; 

 and he said the wandering tinkers were the descendants of 

 the vagabonds who made it. He took delight in gather- 

 ing every scrap of interesting matter regarding our wild 

 flowers, and I have a set of his notes giving the plants that 

 were used as the badges of clans and families. 



The Cranberry, when ripe to blackness, John used to 

 say was " grand for giving headaches." Of Meadow Sweet 

 he used to quote two lines 



" Pleasant as 'tis for a nosegay, 

 Smell it once, and throw't away." 



The power of its over-luscious odour in causing headache 

 and other pains, John said, arose from its containing prussic 



