144 POPULAR NAMES 



Mandrakes of certain itinerant quacks ; and describes the 

 process by which they are made. They were supposed to 

 remove sterility, a notion that has prevailed in the East 

 from the remotest antiquity. Hence Rachel's desire to 

 obtain them, as related in Gen. ch. xxx., v. 14. That of 

 these dealers was the common white bryony, 



Bryonia dioica, L. 



MANGEL WTJRZEL, literally " scarcity root," but origi- 

 nally Mangold, a word of unknown meaning, and as Mengel 

 or Menwel applied to docks, 



Beta vulgaris, Jj. var. hybrida, Sal. 



MANNA-GRASS, from the sweet taste of the seed, 



Glyceria fluitans, RB. 



MAP-LICHEN, from the curious map-like figures formed 

 by its thallus on flat stones, Lecidea geographica, Hook. 



MAPEL, A.S. mapel-treow, or mapulder, in Pr. Pm. 

 mapulle, a word adopted from the language of the ancient 

 Britons, and of early and general use throughout England, 

 as is shown by the number of places named after the tree. 

 It is clearly the Welsh mapwl, a knob in the middle of any 

 thing, and refers to the knotty excrescence from the trunk 

 of the tree, the bruscum, so much employed and so highly 

 valued in the Roman times and in the Middle ages for 

 making bowls and tables, that single specimens of it have 

 fetched many thousand pounds. See Pliny, N.H. xvi. 27, 

 and Smith, Diet. Ant. art. Mensa. The tree was naturally 

 named after its most valuable product, its mapwl, and the 

 word adopted, upon their arrival here, by the Anglo-Saxons. 



Acer campestre, L. 



MARAM, either the Gael muram, or, as is more probable, 

 the Fris. and Dan. marhalm, sea-haulm or straw, a word 

 which in Norway is applied to the zostera and certain fuci, 

 the grass called mat-weed, Psamma arenaria, PB. 



MARCH or MERCH, Da. marke, Sw. mcerki, the old name 

 of parsley, preserved in stanmarch, the Alexander, and in 



