118 FAMILIAR WILD PLOTTERS. 



of the grey seed-down gives to the plant. The name, a 

 somewhat forced and fanciful one, was bestowed on the 

 genus by the great Linnseus. The idea seems to have 

 struck him as a good one, for a closely allied genus in the 

 same sub-tribe of this great natural order was by him 

 called Erigeron, a name bestowed on the plants of that 

 genus for the same reason that guided the choice of the 

 generic name of the water-ragwort, Erigeron being derived 

 from two Greek words signifying "early/' and "an old 

 man." The specific name aquations, of the ragwort now 

 under consideration, and its English name water-ragwort, 

 both point clearly to its liking for the neighbourhood of 

 water ; the plant, however, is not really an aquatic plant 

 in the sense that the water-lily or the flowering-rush are, 

 as it is always found on the banks, though these could 

 perhaps not always be literally termed terra firma. The 

 English name ragwort refers to the somewhat torn and 

 ragged look of the deeply -cut foliage, wort being an old 

 English word for plant. We meet with it again in the 

 swallow-wort, saw-wort, soap-wort, glass-wort, roth-wort, 

 cross-wort, dane-wort, cole-wort, awl-wort, butter-wort, 

 may- wort, milk- wort, and many other old plant names. 



Several of the species of Senecio are very similar in 

 appearance, and this is one of them. The present plant, 

 the narrow-leaved ragwort (or S. eruccefolius] , and the 

 ragwort proper, (or S. Jacob ad), may often be mistaken 

 for each other, for though the type-forms are sufficiently 

 distinct to amply justify their discrimination as separate 

 species, the forms often run into variations that render 

 their identification at times difficult. The botanical test 

 in such a case is the form of the fruit, a point which, 

 in a book like the present, it is needless for us to discuss 



