WATER A YENS. Ill 



the Latin word r Indus, a small brook. On turning to Prior, 

 to see what he could tell us of the significance of the 

 popular name, we were met hy the following very un- 

 satisfying statement: "Avens, in Promptorium Parvu- 

 lorum avence, in Topsell and Askam avance, Mediaeval 

 Latin avantia or a vend, in Ortus Sanitatis anancia : 

 a word of obscure origin and quite unintelligible : spelt 

 also anartia, anantia, arancia, and amancia." Several of 

 these authorities for the spelling are decidedly antique ; for 

 example, the last book referred to was brought out in the 

 year 1486, so that we must conclude that all clue to the 

 original meaning of the word is lost in the mists of far- 

 reaching antiquity. 



The root-stock of the water avens is perennial, the 

 stems are erect, about a foot high, scarcely branching, having 

 only a few leaves upon them, and those of a very simple 

 character. Most of the leaves spring from the base of the 

 plant, and have one large terminal lobe and a few small 

 lateral leaflets. The whole plant is hairy. The flowers are 

 few in number, often drooping, the five petals forming 

 together a compact and cup-like corolla. The petals are 

 heart-shaped, and vary in colour from a dull orange to red or 

 purplish. The calyx is cleft into ten segments, five being 

 very much smaller than the others with which they 

 alternate. It is dull reddish-purple in colour, and partakes 

 of the same compact nature as the corolla. The stamens 

 are of the usual rosaceous charactei', an indefinite number 

 of them clustering together, and forming with their anthers 

 a yellow mass in the centre of the flower using the term 

 centre, of course, in its artistic, not botanical, sense, for 

 here, as elsewhere, the female organs occupy the actual 

 centre, and the stamens surround them. 



