OF BKITISH PLANTS. 109 



it is called Henbell, A.S. henne-belle, a word that would 

 seem to refer to the resemblance of its persistent and en- 

 larged calyx to the scallop-edged bells of the middle ages, 

 and the more so as the plant is called in some of the old 

 plant-lists Symphoniaca, from symphonia, a ring of bells to 

 be struck with the hammer. See below, YEVERING BELLS. 

 .Nevertheless this is possibly a case, such as so frequently 

 occurs, of accommodating an ill-understood name to plain 

 ideas. The plant is called in A.S. belene, and belune, in 

 German bilse, in old German belisa, Pol. bielun, Hung. 

 belend, Russ. belend, words derived (according toZeuss, p. 34) 

 from an ancient Celtic God Belenus corresponding to the 

 Apollo of the Latins : " Dem Belenus war das Bilsenkraut 

 heilig, das von ihm Belisa und Apollinaris hiess." It is 

 only in comparatively recent times that the bell has been 

 replaced by bane, and it is difficult to see how it ever was 

 connected with henne, if the henne referred to the bird so 

 called. Hyoscyamus niger, L. 



HEN BIT, G. humr-biss, Fl. koender-beet, L.morsusgallince, 

 from some fancied nibbling of its leaves by poultry : 

 THE GREATER-, Lamium amplexicaule, L. 



THE LESSER-, Veronica hederifolia, L. 



HEN'S-FOOT, a mere translation of Lat. pes pulli, a name 

 that Stapei, in Theophrast. p. 812, says was given to it 

 from the resemblance of its leaves to a hen's claw, an 

 observation that he must have made on a bad picture, 



Caucalis daucoides, L. 



HEPATICA, an adopted Greek word, adj. of hepar, the 

 liver, applied to a plant with three-lobed leaves, used in 

 affections of that organ: " Hepatica in Hepatis morbis, 

 quod folia visceris istius gerunt figuram." Linn. Bibl. Bot. 

 p. 117. In the medieval writers, such as Platearius, it 

 means a Marchantia, M. polymorpha, L. 



in popular language at the present day, 



Anemone hepatica, L. 



