184 POPULAR NAMES 



and Cressida, iii. 2, with an allusion to a superstitious 

 belief that seems to be due to a false derivation of the 

 word, as planet-age, i.e. planet-wort : 



" As true as steel, zsplantage to the moon." 

 The poet probably meant not the plantain, but the moon- 

 wort. Botrychium Lunaria, L. 



PLANTAIN, \i.plantago, from planta, sole of the foot, and 

 ago, which seems to have been used in plant-names with 

 the sense of " wort," from the shape of the leaf in the 

 larger species resembling a footstep, P. major, L. etc. 

 WATER-, Alisma Plantago, L. 



PLANTAIN-SHOREWEED, a weed of the plantain tribe 

 found beside lakes and ponds, Littorella lacustris, L. 



PLOWMAN'S ALLHEAL, see CLOWN'S- ALLHEAL. 



PLOWMAN'S SPIKENARD, from the fragrant smell of the 

 root, and its being supposed by Gerarde, p. 647, to be the 

 Baccharis of Dioscorides, the vapSos dypia, nardus rustica, 

 clown's nard, of other writers, Conyza squarrosa, L. 



PLUM, A.S. plum, L.G. prume, L. prunum, from some 

 Asiatic name. In Gate's time the fruit was known to the 

 Romans, but not the tree. 



Primus communis, Huds. var. domestica, L. 



POLE-REED, properly, as in Newton's Bible Herbal, 

 POOL-REED, from its place of growth, 



Arundo phragmites, L. 



POLE-RUSH, properly POOL-RUSH, see BULRUSH. 



POLIANTHUS, Gr. 7ro\u9, and avdos, many-flowered, a 

 garden variety of the oxlip, Primula veris, L. elatior. 



POLY-MOUNTAIN, L. polium montanum, 



Bartsia alpina, L. 



POLYPODY, Gr. TroXu?, and -n-oSe?, many feet, a name 

 given to certain ferns with pectinate fronds, from the 

 resemblance of some of them to an insect called scolo- 

 pendrium, Polypodium, L. 



