OF BRITISH PLANTS. 121 



HUNGER-GRASS, from its starving cereal crops among 

 which it grows, and thus causing famine, 



Alopecurus agrestis, L. 



-WEED, from its abundance indicating a bad crop, 

 and season of famine, Ranunculus arvensis, L. 



HURR-BURR, the burdock, whose involucres form the 

 nucleus of the hardes or hurds, Norw. horr, the tangled 

 lumps that are carded out of flax and wool, 



Arctium Lappa, L. 



HURST- or HORST- or HORSE-BEECH, the hornbeam, 

 from its growth on hursts, and some resemblance of its 

 leaves to those of the beech-tree, Carpinus Betulus, L. 



HURT-SICKLE, "because," says Culpeper, "with its hard 

 wiry stem it turneth the edge of the sickle, that reapeth 

 the corn;" called, for the same reason, by Brunsfelsius 

 Blaptisecula, from Gr. /SXavrTto, injure, 



Centaurea Cyanus, L. 



HURTLE-BERRY, and HUCKLE-BERRY, corruptions of 

 W/wr tie-berry, itself a corruption of Myrtle-berry, 



Vaccinium Myrtillus, L. 



HYACINTH, Gr. vaKivOos, a plant to which frequent 

 allusion is made by the Greek poets, but which, from the 

 vague way in which they used the names of flowers, it is 

 impossible to identify. It can scarcely have been the 

 hyacinth of our gardens. Some suppose it to have been 

 the martagon lily, some a gladiole. The former seems to 

 have been Ovid's plant, the latter that of the Sicilian 

 poets, Theocritus and Moschus. But it would here be out 

 of place to enter into the question. See Ovid. Met. b. x, 

 164. Theocr. Id. x, 28. Moschus, Id. iii, 6. As now 

 understood, it is the genus Hyacinthus, L. 



HYSSOP, the name given in our authorized version of 

 the Bible to the caper, but in popular language assigned to 

 a labiate plant, the supposed VO-O-WTTO? of Dioscorides, 



Hyssopus officinalis, L. 



