62 POPULAR NAMES 



a name that seems to have delighted Chaucer, who makes 

 long and repeated allusions to it, Bellis perennis, L. 

 GREAT-, or MOON-, or OX-EYB-, 



Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum, L. 



DAMASK VIOLET, or DAME'S VIOLET, L. Viola Damas- 

 cena, from Damascus in Syria, Fr. Violette de Damas, mis- 

 understood for Violette des dames, 



Hesperis matronalis, L. 



DAMSONS, DAMASINS, or DAMASK PRUNES, Fr. damascene, 

 a kind of plum first brought from Damascus, 



Prunus communis, Huds. var. damascena. 



DANDELION, Fr. dent de lion, lion's tooth, L. leontodon, 

 a name, about the meaning of which modern authors are 

 undecided. Some derive it from the whiteness of the root ; 

 some from the yellowness of the flower, which they com- 

 pare to that of the heraldic lion, whose teeth are of gold ; 

 most of the Herbalists from the runcinate jags of the leaf, 

 which somewhat resembles the jaw, but certainly not a 

 tooth of the lion ; others from other grounds more or less 

 plausible, but all to the neglect of the only safe guide in 

 these matters, the ancient writer who gave the name. 

 We learn from the Ortus Sanitatis, ch. 152, that a Master 

 William, who was a surgeon, and who seems, from ch. 226, 

 to have written a " cyrorgi," or work on surgery, was very 

 fond of this plant on account of its virtues, and therefore 

 likened it to a lion's tooth, called in Latin dens teonis. 

 " Diss kraute hat Meyster< Wilhelmus, eyn wuntartzet 

 gewest, fast lieb gehabt umb seiner tugent willen, unnd 

 darumb hatt er es geglichen eynem leuwen zan, genant zu 

 latein dens leonis." Ed. Augsburg. 1486, fol. It bears a 

 .similar name in nearly every European language. 



Taraxacum officinale, Vill. 



DANEWORT, DANEWEED, or DANESWEED, names of the 

 dwarf elder for which Awbrey in his Nat. Hist, of Wilts, 

 p. 50, substitutes that of DANESBLOOD, and gives an ex- 



