LVSIMACHIA QUADRIFOLIA. — FOIK-I.l' \\ 1.1) I.OOSKSTRIFE. 59 



plant which they called Lysimachia, and this is supposed to 

 have been the L. tcnclla of Tournefort, a small creeping species 

 of the section now known to cultivators as " Moneywort." As 

 to the origin of the name, Salmon, writing in lyio, says: " It is 

 known in Lathic as Lysimachia and Lysimachiou, so called from 

 Lysimachus, king of Illyria (as I suppose), who was the first 

 finder of it out." Milne, in his " Dictionary," says the name is 

 derived "from Lysimachus, king of Sicily," and according to 

 Pfeiffer it is connected with " Lysimachus, a king of Thrace." 

 There was, indeed, a king of Thrace named Lysimachus, one of 

 the generals of Alexander who divided among themselves the 

 acquisitions of this conqueror after his death ; but according to 

 Pliny, the same name was also given to a precious stone with 

 veins of gold running through it, and the similarity between 

 the golden, coin-like flowers of what are supposed to be the origi- 

 nal species, and the bright, gold-veined jewel, might easily have 

 suggested the name. Another guess at the origin of the name, 

 which is especially favored by modern authors, is based upon 

 the etymology of the word. Pliny, according to Dr. Prior, tells 

 us in his twenty-fifth book " that if branches of the plant be laid 

 on a yoke of oxen when they are quarrelling it will quiet them." 

 Sir William J. Hooker, in his " British Flora," alludes to this 

 story, and on the strength of it suggests that the name may be 

 derived from two Greek words, lysis, a release from, and machc, 

 battle. This interpretation, indeed, accords exceedingly well 

 with the very old common name of our plant, " Loosestrife," and 

 has therefore been adopted by Paxton and by Johnson in their 

 Dictionaries, and by all our American botanical philologists. 



Our Four-leaved Loosestrife, if Dr. Titford be correct, shares 

 to some extent the quieting qualities attributed to its ancient 

 prototype, although it does not exert its power o\er oxen, but 

 over another kind of creatures which Americans are often as 

 anxious to control. In his " Hortus Botanicus Americanus," 

 the author named writes as follows: " The virtues of tin's plant 

 are vulnerary and styptic. The distilled water is cosmetic, and 



