172 POPULAR NAMES 



OXTONGUE, from the shape and roughness of its leaf, 

 Helminthia echioides, Giirt. 



OYSTER-GBEEN, a sea-weed, so named from its bright 

 green tint, and its being frequently found attached to the 

 oyster, Ulva lactuca, L. 



PADDOCK-PIPES, in Cotgrave TOAD-PIPES, from its straight 



hollow pipe-like stalks, and growth in mud, where toads 

 haunt, the horse-tail, Equisetum limosum, L. 



PADDOCK-STOOLS, in Topsell PADSTOOLE, Du. padde-stoel, 

 toad-stool, from their resemblance to the tripods called 

 joint-stools, and the notion that toads sit upon them. (See 

 TOADSTOOL). Boletus and Agaricus. 



PADELION, Fr. pas de lion, from the resemblance of its 

 leaf to the impress of a lion's foot, the lady's mantle, 



Alchemilla vulgaris, L. 



PAIGLE, PAGLE, PAGEL, PEAGLE, PEGYLL, and PYGIL, 

 a name that is now scarcely heard except in the Eastern 

 counties, and usually assigned to the cowslip, but by Ray 

 and Moore to the Ranunculus bulbosus, a word of extremely 

 obscure and disputed origin. Most of the dictionaries de- 

 rive it from paralysis. Latham from Fr. epingle, a pin, in 

 allusion to its pin-shaped pistil ; Forby, strangely enough, 

 from A.S. paett, a die-plant, a purple robe; Forster, in 

 Perennial Calendar, p. 191, says that it " evidently signi- 

 fies pratingale, from prata, meadows, where it delighteth to 

 grow." An East Anglian correspondent informs me that 

 paigle means a spangle. In Flemish pegel is a gauge. It 

 is possible that it may be corrupted from A.S. c&g, a key, or 

 from some word compounded with it. The primroses and 

 mulleins are so mixed up together by the herbalists, that I 

 rather incline to the belief that it is a name of the mullein 

 under which cowslips and primroses were comprehended, and 

 that it is not descriptive of these latter. It may possibly 

 be a corruption of verbasculum, through a lost French word, 

 in which the s was omitted before c. Primula veris, L. 



