FOOL'S PARSLEY 125 



Deil's or Devil's Darning-needle, Darning Needles, Devil's Elshin, 

 Elshins, Ground Enell, Hedge-hog, Needle, Pink Needle, Old Wife's 

 Darning Needles, Old Woman's Needle, Wild Parsley, Poke Needle, 

 Pook Needle, Powkenely, Pound Needle, Powk Needle, Puck Needle, 

 Shepherd's Needle, Stikpyle, Tailor's Needles, Throck-needle, Venus's 

 Needle. 



As to the name Venus's Comb, Gerard says, " After (the flowers) 

 come uppe, long seeds very like unto pack-needles, orderlie set one by 

 another like the great teeth of a combe." 



There is a common saying, says W. K. Wise, " in the New Forest 

 that two crow-pecks are as good as an oat for a horse ", to which the 

 reply is " that a crow-peck and a barley-corn may be ". 



This plant is called Adam's Needle from the long seed-pods, and 

 the name Devil's Darning Needle arises from its long awns. Elshins, 

 or awls, is the name given on account of the long-pointed fruits. 



At first called Our Lady's Comb, this became Venus's Comb. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



126. Scandix Pecten-Veneris, L. Stem short, erect, leaves tri- 

 pinnate, flowers small, white, in an umbel of few rays, fruit long, 

 beaked, rough, with marginal bristles. 



Fool's Parsley (^Ethusa Cynapium, L.) 



The antiquity of this umbellifer, in spite of its association with 

 cultivated land to-day, is shown by its occurrence in Neolithic beds 

 in Hants, and Roman deposits at Edinburgh. 



It is found in the Temperate Zone in Europe and Siberia, and it 

 has been recently introduced into N. America. In Great Britain it is 

 not found in Cardigan, Isle of Man, Linlithgow, Easterness, and only 

 in the Clyde Islands, in W. and N. Highlands, and in the Northern 

 Isles, or from Elgin to the S. Coast. It is native in Ireland. 



Fool's Parsley is a very characteristic plant of all cultivated ground, 

 occurring there and elsewhere always as a weed. It is also a common 

 plant around houses, in gardens, plantations, stack- and farm-yards, and 

 is found on all pieces of waste land. 



The burning properties of the plant, when taken, are referred to 

 in the first Latin name. It is poisonous, and this may be indicated 

 by its extremely smooth, shiny stem, and dark-green lurid colour. 

 The main stem divides above, and the leaflets are all linear, narrowly 

 elliptic, of one size, the leaves being several times divided, with lobes 

 each side of the stalk. The stem is hollow and bluish-green. The 



