BOG ASPHODEL. 143 



coincidence the name of the genus in which it is now 

 placed contains exactly the same letters : the words form 

 an anagram. The word asphodel was applied by ancient 

 Greek writers to a plant that cannot now be satisfactorily 

 identified, but the general balance of evidence would appear 

 to be in favour of the narcissus, and the name of a close 

 relative to this the daffodil is itself a corruption of the 

 word asphodel. Why the present plant, which only bears 

 a very distant resemblance to either the daffodil or the nar- 

 cissus, should have got the name of asphodel, we are unable 

 to say. Parkinson describes two species a greater and a lesser 

 marsh " asphodill ; " but there is no such distinction really, 

 and we can only suppose that two plants sent to him were 

 so unequal in development that he thought they must 

 be really different species, and his illustrations, rude in 

 character as they are, bear out this idea. He says of 

 them : " Both these sorts have beene found in our owne 

 land, as well as beyond sea, in the marrish and wet gronds, 

 the former not only in Lancashire, as Gerarde hath 

 recorded, but in divers other places, and the last likewise 

 by Egham, not farre from the river side there, and in the 

 west parts of the land also." 



The older writers always endeavoured to find a " vertue" 

 for everything ; and Gerarde records that in some parts of 

 the country young women used the bog asphodel to dye their 

 hair of a yellowish tint, and called it maiden-hair. He also 

 calls it King's Speare, Asphodelus luteus, and Hastula 

 regia. Though he evidently prefers the name Lancashire 

 Asphodel, and gives an illustration which he entitles 

 Asphodelus Lancastria verus, he is not so utterly beyond 

 conviction that the plant may be found elsewhere, as 

 Parkinson seems to think. He shall, however, conduct his 



