OF BRITISH PLANTS. 187 



from L. theriaca, an anthelmintic medicine, among the 

 principal ingredients of which were stone-crops, 



Sedum acre, album, and reflexum, L. 



PRICK-TIMBER, or PRICK-WOOD, from its being used to 

 make skewers, shoemakers' pegs, and goads, which were 

 formerly called pricks, G. pinnholtz, the spindle tree, 



Evonymus europseus, L. 



PRIEST'S CROWN, from its bald receptacle, after the 

 pappus has fallen from it, resembling the shorn heads of 

 the Roman Catholic clergy, Taraxacum officinale, Vill. 



PRIEST'S PINTLE, G. pfajf en-pint and pfajfen-zagel, Fr. 

 vit de prestre, so called from the appearance of the spadix, 



Arum maculatum, L. 



PRIMEROLE, in Chaucer, 1. 3268, from the Fr. primeve- 

 role ) dim. of primavera, shortened from It. for di prima 

 vera. See PRIMROSE. 



PRIMPRINT, or PRIM, a name now given to the privet, 

 but formerly to the primrose, from the Fr. prime printemps, 

 first spring, and exactly corresponding to the modern Fr. 

 name of this flower, primevtre. In the middle ages, how- 

 ever, the primrose was called in Latin Ligustrum, as may 

 be seen in a Nominale of the fifteenth century in Mayer 

 and Wright's vocabularies, p. 192 and p. 264, and several 

 other lists, and so late as the seventeenth century in W. 

 Coles's Adam in Eden, where he says of Ligustrum, " This 

 herbe is called primrose. It is good to potage." But 

 Ligustrum was used on the continent, and adopted by 

 Turner, as the generic name of the Privet ; and prim-print, 

 as the English of Ligustrum, thus came to be transferred 

 from the herb to the shrub. Ligustrum vulgare, L. 



PRIMET, shortened from primprint, and correctly applied 

 in the Grete Herball, ch. cccl., to the primrose, 



Primula veris, L. 



PRIMROSE, from Pryme rolles, the name it bears in old 

 books and MSS. The Grete Herball, ch. cccl., says, " It is 



