38 FAMILIAR WILD ILOWEES. 



flowers and leaves, is, botanical ly, the Potentilla reptans. 

 The generic title is derived from the Latin/>0fc**j powerful, 

 several plants of the genus being, in the Middle Ages, 

 accredited with potent medicinal properties. If these 

 properties ever had any real existence the plants yielding 

 them have now given place to others that possess the 

 needed qualifications in a higher degree. The spread of 

 knowledge and the greater opportunities of travel and re- 

 search have rendered available to us many foreign plants 

 that, in most cases, can more effectually serve the needs of 

 suffering humanity or the requirements of commerce than 

 our indigenous plants. We need only, in passing, just 

 mention quinine and indigo as examples of this patent 

 fact. The " happy medium " is no doubt the right view to 

 take in this as in so many other cases, for while, on the 

 one hand, we can scarcely appreciate the zeal with which, 

 in the Middle Ages, almost any common plant was credited 

 with healing virtue for nearly every ailment, it is no less 

 true, on the other part, that in these later days the study of 

 the economic and medicinal value of our native flora has 

 been too much neglected. The specific name, reptans, is 

 from a Latin verb, and refers to the creeping nature of the 

 plant. The name cinquefoil, we need scarcely say, means 

 five-leaved, and refers to the form of the leaf, composed, as 

 it ordinarily is, of five leaflets, though, in rich soil, the 

 leaflets are often seven in number. It is in some old 

 herbals called the five-leaved grass, and five-fingers. 

 The plant was formerly much used as a remedy for the 

 ague. According to Dioscorides in a quartan ague the 

 leaves of four stalks should be taken, in a tertian three, 

 and in a quotidian the leaves of one. The plant was also 

 employed for cancer, quinsy, jaundice, toothache, hoarseness, 



