112 FAMILIAR WILD FLO WEES. 



operations of nature are carried on. " He appointeth the 

 moon for seasons ; the sun knoweth his going down," and 

 what is true of great things is not less true, though less 

 obvious, in small. All lovers of plants will have noticed 

 how regularly each falls into its appointed time and 

 sequence. The comfrey, we have said, may be expected in 

 the fourth week of April ; we have gone over the data of the 

 Marlborough College Natural History Society, and find in 

 the nine years, from 1865 to 1873 inclusive, the following 

 dates of first appearance. All are in April, we need 

 therefore only give the day of the month, nz. : 30th, 

 28th, 29th, 27th, 16th, 21st, 23rd, 24th, and 20th. 

 These observations, though not absolutely reliable, as it is 

 quite possible the plant may have been in blossom a day or 

 two before being noticed, are, nevertheless, the result of 

 the careful watching of a considerable number of observers, 

 and are at least sufficiently accurate to illustrate the matter 

 referred to. We find that the requisites of our space forbid 

 our saying anything of the medicinal qualities of the 

 comfrey; but as these are now discredited, it is the less 

 necessary to regret the omission. It suffices, therefore, 

 to say that as "an herb of Saturn/' it was deemed cold 

 in quality, and applied in consequence to all inflammatory 

 ailments. This division of plants into warm and cold 

 by old writers is exceedingly arbitrary. Probably, in 

 the case of the comfrey, the damp, low-lying localities 

 in which it is found influenced its position in the strange 

 mixture of astrology and botany that was current in the 

 Middle Ages. 



