153 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



to receive the name, in local nomenclature, of butterdock. 

 In earlier days the burdock was called the heriff, aireve, or 

 airup : like most other old names, the spelling was freely 

 varied. All these forms of the word have one common 

 origin the Anglo-Saxon words, hceg, a hedge, and reafe, a 

 robber. It has been suggested that the derivation of 

 these old names should rather be found in the A.-S. verb, 

 reafian, to seize, but it is evident that the force of either 

 word is the same ; it is, therefore, immaterial which root is 

 taken. The name is suggested by the way in which the 

 sharply-hooked involucres seize and hold anything they 

 touch; though it more frequently happens that, as they 

 will not let go, they are torn off from the stem and carried 

 away by the unconscious traveller, who may probably bear 

 them about with him all day if they happen to stick on 

 some part of his clothing not immediately under his notice. 

 "We have seen already that if two plants agree in some 

 striking respect, no matter how different they may be in 

 all else, they will, probably, in early writings be found 

 to bear almost or precisely the same name. Bearing this 

 in mind, we are not surprised to find that the cleavers, or 

 goose-grass, shared with the burdock these old names of 

 aireve and airup, covered as it is with small burrs, that 

 tenaciously adhere to the clothing in exactly the same way 

 as the larger ones of the burdock do. The scientific name 

 of the burdock is the Arctium Lappa : the generic name is 

 derived from the Greek word for a bear, the allusion again 

 being to the rough texture of the involucres of the plant. 



The burdock is a very common plant on waste ground 

 and by the roadside. Its flower-heads will be found 

 expanded during the latter part of the summer and well 

 into the autumn. The plant is often four feet high, or 



