158 POPULAR NAMES 



MOSS-RUSH, from its growing on heaths and mosses, 



Juncus squarrosus, L. 



MOTHER OP THOUSANDS (Treas. of Botany) a pun on 

 its old name penny-wort, Linaria cymbalaria, L. 



MOTHER OF THYME, a name that undoubtedly ought to 

 be written Mother-Thyme, as meaning " womb-thyme," 

 having been given to this plant from its supposed effect 

 upon the womb, which in our old writers is called mother, 

 a use of the word adopted from the Flemish. According 

 to Isidore (c. ix.) this plant was in Latin also called 

 " matris animula, quod menstrua mo vet." Hence, too, its 

 German names Quendel and Kuttelkraut. See HOFER, 

 v. ii., p. 184. Platearius says of it : 



"Serpyllum matricem comfortat et mundificat. Mulieres 

 Salernitanse hoc fomento multum utuntur." 



The nearly allied genus Melissa is, for the same reason, 

 called by Herbarius (c. 84) Muderkrut, a word exactly 

 equivalent to Moth'erwort. See below. 



Thymus Serpyllum, L. 



MOTHERWORT, so called, says Parkinson (Th. Bot. p. 44), 

 from its being " of wonderful helpe to women in the risings 

 of the mother," Leonurus Cardiaca, L. 



also in old works the mugwort, which, from its 

 being used in uterine diseases, was called moder-wort, 

 womb-wort, a name that by JElfric is correctly rendered 

 matrum-herba, wort of mothers, but by later writers mis- 

 understood and rendered mater herbarum, mother of worts. 

 Thus Macer (c. i.) 



" Herlarum matrem justum puto ponere primo : 

 Praecipue morbis muliebribus ilia medetur." 



Indeed its use in these affections was so general that 

 Ray tells us (Cat. Plant, p. 29), quoting the words of 

 Schroder : " Uterina est, adeoque usus est creberrimi 

 mulierculis, quse earn adhibent interne et extern e, ut vix 



