106 FOOTNOTES FROM 



was probably the lung-wort (Sticta pulmonaria), which 

 grows in immense shaggy masses on trees and rocks in 

 sub-alpine woods. From the resemblance of its reticu- 

 lated and lobed upper-surface, usually of a greyish-brown 

 colour, to the human lungs, it was highly recommended 

 as an infallible cure for all diseases of these delicate 

 organs. The beautiful cup-lichen, so abundant on dry 

 moorlands under the shade of the heather, was long a 

 favourite rustic remedy in this country for coughs. 

 Gerarde, the old English herbalist, says : " The powder 

 of this moss given unto small children, in any liquor for 

 certaine daies together, is a most certaine remidy against 

 that perilous maladie called the chin-cough. Albeit the 

 remidy doth require care, and is not to be adventured 

 upon save under the guidance of an experienced gude- 

 wife." On account of the intensely bitter principle con- 

 tained in greater or less degree in all lichens, many 

 species used to be employed in intermittent fevers and 

 agues, as substitutes for Peruvian bark, which was then 

 sold at a price so extravagant, as to be utterly beyond 

 the reach of the poorer classes. For the same reason, 

 they were often administered in the form of powders 

 and decoctions, as tonics to purify the blood and 

 strengthen the system. Their astringent qualities 

 depending, I may remark, in a great measure upon 

 the kind of tree on which they were produced were 

 also turned to advantage in the cure of haemorrhages, 

 fluxes, and ruptures; and Linnaeus informs us that the 

 Laplanders fill up their snow-shoes with one species, and 

 apply it to the feet to relieve the excoriations occasioned 

 by long and fatiguing journeys. During one period of 



