106 POPULAR NAMES 



also extended to it, and the name of Heart' s-ease ; and, as 

 the wallflower and the pansy were both comprehended 

 among the Violets, that of Hearts-ease seems to have been 

 transferred from the former to the species of the latter now 

 called so. H. Brunschwygk, in his curious work " de arte 

 distillandi," tells us of the wallflower : " Gel violen wasser 

 kiilet ein wenig das herz : das geschycht uss ursach syner 

 kreftigung und Bterckung, ob es zu vil keltin het, so tem- 

 perier es, ob es zu vil hytz het, so temperier es ouch 

 darumb das es das herz erfrowet" Tabernsemontanus also, 

 (Kraut, p. 689,) says of the wallflower : " Welchem men- 

 schen das Herz zittert von Kalte, der soil sich dieses 

 gebrauchen." The instances are so numerous of the trans- 

 ference of an appropriate name to a plant to which it is 

 quite unsuited, that we can find no difficulty in assigning 

 this origin to the term Hearts-ease as at present employed. 



Viola tricolor, L. 



HEART-CLOVER, or, TREFOIL, "is so called," says W. 

 Coles, in his Art of Simpling, p. 89, " not onely because 

 the leaf is triangular like the heart of a man, but also 

 because each leafe contains the perfect icon of an heart, 

 and that in its proper colour, viz., a flesh colour. It 

 defendeth the heart against the noisome vapour of the 

 spleen." Medicago rnaculata, Sibth. 



HEATH, HEATHER, or HATHER, A.S. haft, G. heide, O.N. 

 heffii, Go. haipi, a word which primarily meant the country 

 in which the heath grows, Skr. kshetra, a field, Beng. kheta, 

 and Skr. kshiti, land, from kshi, dwell. It is from the 

 same root, kshi, that is derived Skr. kshama, ground, Prakr. 

 khama, to which are related Gr. %<tyww, Go. haims, O.N. 

 heimi, and our home. When the north of Europe was a 

 forest, open land was naturally preferred for the site of 

 dwellings, the heath was the only open land, and this ac- 

 quired a name that had been used to designate a field, or 

 homestead. Erica and Calluna. 



