142 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



of this benefactor of his species, the plant was called 

 Acldllea. An ointment of the leaves was employed as a 

 vulnerary ; it was also freely employed in inflammations. 

 If the head be bathed with a decoction of the plant, it 

 will, we are told by the old herbalists, prevent the shedding 

 of the hair ; while the chewing of the leaf in the mouth 

 is a remedy for toothache. Another use of the plant is 

 sufficiently indicated in its old name of nose-bleed. 



The yarrow will ordinarily be found in flower by the 

 beginning of June, and it lasts in blossom all through 

 the summer and autumn, and, indeed, we have picked 

 flowering specimens as late as December. It may be 

 abundantly met with almost everywhere on hedge-banks, 

 in pastures, on waste ground, and by the roadside. To 

 show not only how widely distributed a plant it is, but how 

 far, too, it is held in repute, we may mention that Hooker 

 affirms that the Highlanders of Scotland make a valuable 

 ointment of it ; that Woodville says that a kind of beer is 

 made of it in Sweden, while Sparmann indicates a very 

 similar use of it in Africa. It is also widely distributed 

 over North America. It is said by later and more trust- 

 worthy writers than the herbalists of the Middle Ages that 

 the plant really is in some degree sedative, astringent, anti- 

 spasmodic, and tonic. 



The root-stock of the yarrow is perennial, and creeps 

 underground some little distance. From this several small 

 leafy branches, that bear no blossom, are thrown up to a 

 height of some four or six inches, forming a compact-look- 

 ing mass of verdure, and from this rise the flowering stems, 

 which are sometimes eighteen inches or so high. These 

 stems are often pale grey in colour, from the mass of soft 

 woolly hair with which they are felted. They bear but 



