OF BRITISH PLANTS. 145 



the G. wasser-merke and Da. vand-merke, celery, formed 

 from L. armoracia, in the fifteenth century called in German 

 merich and mirrich, and to this day in Wetterau mirch. 

 In A.S. the parsley is called merce, meric, and merici. See 

 L. Diefenbach, Or. Eur. No. 26. Apium, L. 



MARE-BLOBS, from A.S. mere and myre, a marsh, and 

 also a mare, and blob or bleb, a bladder, the marsh-mallow, 

 so called from its round flower-buds, 



Caltha palustris, L. 



MARE'S-TAIL, a plant called in old herbals " Female 

 Horse-tail," Lat. cauda equina fcemina, being looked upon 

 as the female of the larger and stronger Equisetum fluvia- 

 tile. Modern botanists, following Hudson, have shifted the 

 hyphen, and chosen to understand the name as " Female- 

 horse Tail," or " Mare's Tail." Hippuris vulgaris, L. 



MARGUERITE, from the French, the daisy, in Chaucer 

 MARGARETTE, a plant so called, not from its fancied inno- 

 cence and simplicity, but because, for reasons given under 

 MAGHET, it was formerly used in uterine diseases, which 

 were under the especial care of St. Margaret, of Cortona. 

 This lady, according to Mrs. Jameson, (Mon. Ord. p. 329), 

 had for some years led an abandoned life, but had repented 

 and been canonised, and was regarded by the people of her 

 native town as a local Magdalene, and, like her prototype, 

 supposed, in respect of her early habits, to preside over the 

 diseases of the womb, and others peculiar to young women. 

 See MAUDLIN. Her name has been mixed up with that of 

 a 8t. Margaret, of Antioch, who, according to Hampson, 

 (Med. JSv. Kal. ii. 257), "was invoked as another Lucina, 

 because in her martyrdom she prayed for lying-in-women." 

 But it is the Cortona saint, and not this one of Antioch, 

 whose name has been given to the daisy, and probably in 

 the first place to the moon-daisy. The story of the maiden 

 of Antioch, 



"Maid Margarete, that was so meeke and mild;" 



10 



