18 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



of bugloss, or any other of fifty different flowers, we 

 should have felt little difficulty in persuading ourselves, 

 in full view of its charms, that, if not absolutely the most 

 attractive of our plants, it was at least fully entitled to a 

 place in the front rank. 



The common stork's-bill, or Er odium cicutarium, as it is 

 termed in the nomenclature of science, derives both its 

 common and generic name from the likeness a somewhat 

 fanciful one, surely of the long and pointed form of the 

 fruit to the bill of a bird ; hence, too, while the present 

 species is called the stork's-bill, an allied genus is com- 

 posed of plants that, from the great similarity in form 

 of the corresponding part, are called crane's-bills. Of 

 this latter we have figured the herb-robert crane's-bill 

 and the meadow crane's-bill. The generic name of the 

 crane's-bills is Geranium, a word derived from the Greek 

 geranos, a crane, and in like manner the generic name 

 of the present species, Erodium, is taken from the Greek 

 word for a stork. The specific name \cicut.arium] of the 

 stork's-bill is derived from the Latin word for the hem- 

 lock plant, cicuta, and is bestowed on this plant from a 

 certain resemblance between the forms of the leaves of 

 the stork's-bill and those of the hemlock. The resemblance 

 is, however, a somewhat superficial one, and points of 

 difference are at once apparent on any real investigation 

 and comparison. Cicuta is the classic name for the hem- 

 lock, not the scientific one ; botanically it is the Coniuw, 

 a name of very fanciful origin. The plant was thus 

 named by Theophrastus from the Greek word for a cone 

 or top, the whirling motion of which latter object was 

 supposed to indicate something of the giddiness that seized 

 those who were so imprudent as thoughtlessly to taste this 



