OF BRITISH PLANTS. 183 



PIPEWOBT, Eriocaulon septangulare, L. 



PIPPERIDGB, or PIPRAGE, red-pip, the barberry, Fr. 

 pepin, a pip, and rouge, red, a name descriptive of the 

 colour and character of its small juiceless fruit, which 

 seems to be rather a pip than a berry, 



Berberis vulgaris, L. 



PISSABED, the dandelion, its name in nearly all the 

 languages of Western Europe, and called so, says Dale, 

 p. 83, " quia plus lotii derivat in vesicam, quam pueruli 

 retinendo sunt, praesertim inter dormiendum, eoque tune 

 imprudentes et inviti stragula permingunt." Beckmann 

 assigns the same reason. But it is questionable, whether a 

 name so general could have originally belonged to a plant 

 that has never been an article of diet, and more probable, 

 that it has been transferred to the dandelion from the salsify 

 or the asphodel. Taraxacum officinale, L. 



PIXIE-STOOLS, a synonym of " toad-stools " and " pad- 

 dock-stools," the work of those elves, 



" whose pastime 



Is to make midnight mushrooms," 



and a name of some interest as showing the identity of the 

 king of the fairies, Puck, with the toad, Fries, pogge ; for 

 pixie is the feminine or diminutive of Puck, and the pixie- 

 stool the toad-stool. The name is in the Western counties 

 given to all suspicious mushrooms alike, but in printed 

 books is generally assigned to the champignon. 



Agaricus Chanterellus, L. 



PLAISTER-CLOVER, from its trefoil leaves, and use in 

 ointments, Melilotus officinalis, L. 



PLANE, its Old Fr. and idiomatically correct form, re- 

 placed in Spenser (F. Q. I. i. 8) and in Milton (P. L. iv. 

 478), with PLATAN E, L.platanus, Gr. 7r\aravo<f, 



Platanus orientalis, and occidentalis, L. 

 MOCK-, the sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus, L. 



PLANTAGE, a name that occurs in Shakspeare's Troilus 



