OF BRITISH PLANTS. 63 



planation of it that seems to be a fanciful one, seeing that 

 the plant bears the same name of " Danesweed" in other 

 counties, viz. that it grows in great plenty about Slaughter- 

 ford, where there was a great fight with the Danes. Par- 

 kinson (Th. Bot. p. 208) derives it with more probability 

 from the aptness of the plant to cause a flux called the 

 Danes ; but as the plant is expressly recommended by 

 Platearius as a remedy " contra quotidianam," the Dane 

 may be a corruption of the last syllables of this word. 



Sainbucus Ebulus L. 



DAPHNE, the name of a nymph, who was turned into a 

 shrub by the other gods, when pursued by Apollo, 



D. Laureola, L. 



DARNEL, in Pr. Pm. DERNEL, a name that in old writers 

 did not mean exclusively the large ray grass to which 

 we now assign it, but many other plants also, of many 

 different genera and natural orders, leguminosse, grarnineae, 

 caryophylleae, etc. The most probable source of this, as 

 of most other popular names, is its medical use. We find 

 that it was a specific remedy for cutaneous diseases. 

 Glantvilla (Batman's translation, 1582) says, c. 194, that 

 "Ray medled with brimstone and with vinegar helpeth 

 against scabs wet and dry, and against tetters, and against 

 itching." Now these diseases were called zerna; "Zernam 

 medici impetiginem vocant," says Cassius Felix, as quoted 

 by the editor of Macer on the line, descriptive of its 

 virtues : 



" Zernas et lepras cura compescis eadem." 

 It is from this word that we seem to have got dernel, 

 which, so far as it was a specific name, meant " itch-weed." 

 But, in truth, there was great confusion among our early 

 herbalists in respect to the names of their plants, and 

 under that of Darnel were comprehended all kinds of corn- 

 field weeds. So in the Grete Herball, ch. 246, we find 

 under the picture of a vetch (!), " Lolium is Cokyll." The 



