OF BRITISH PLANTS. 143 



which, as a beauty in the hair of women, such frequent 

 allusion is made by Chaucer and other romance writers. 

 Even so late as Henry the Eighth's reign Horman says, 

 "May dens were silken callis, with the whiche they keepe 

 in ordre theyr heare made yelowe with lye." See Way's 

 Promp. Pm. p. 294. Galium verum, L. 



MAITHES, that is maids, A.S. magee, mag^e, in Pr. Pm. 

 and other old works mayde-wede and maylhys, from Gr. 

 Trapdeviov, because, says W. Coles, " it is effectual against 

 those distempers of the womb to which virgins are subject," 

 meaning hysterics, ancj* other irregularities of the system. 

 See MAGHET. Pyrethrum Parthenium, L. 



RED-, or RED MAYDE-WEED, from its having been 

 classed with the composite flowers called maithes, and its 

 crimson colour, Adonis autumnalis, L. 



MAKEBATE, because, says Skinner, " if it is put into the 

 bed of a married couple, it sets them quarrelling," but a 

 mere translation of its Latin name as if from TroXe/io?, war, 



Polemonium cseruleum, L. 



MALLOW, A.S. malwe, L. malva, Gr. /jM\a^r), which 

 Pliny and Isidore derive from futhao-a-eiv, soften, as alluding 

 to the laxative property of the plant, Malva. 



MARSH-, Althaea officinalis, L. 



MUSK-, M. moschata, L. 



TREE-, Lavatera arborea, L. 



MANDRAKE, Gr. pavSpcvyopas, a plant generally believed 

 to have been one nearly related to the deadly night-shade. 

 See Hogg in Hooker's Journal, 2nd ser. vol. i. p. 132. 

 Fraudulent dealers used to replace its roots with those of 

 the white bryony cut to the shape of men and women, and 

 dried in a hot sand bath. See Brown's Popular Errors, b. ii. 

 ch. 6 ; Tragus, ch. cxxvi. ; Stapel in Theophrast. p. 583 ; 

 and especially Matthioli, 1. iv. c. 61, where he tells us that 

 Italian ladies in his own time had been known to pay as 

 much as 25 and 30 ducats [aureos] for one of the artificial 



