BUTTERWORT 39 



rubs against the stigma with its back, and dusts it with pollen from 

 another flower, so bringing about cross-pollination. When it retreats 

 it pushes back the stigma. The capsule splits open, and thus allows 

 the seeds to be dispersed around the parent plant. 



This curious plant, the Butterwort, is a peat -loving plant, and 

 requires a peat soil. 



Pinguicula, Gesner, is from the Latin pinguis, fat, because the 

 leaves are thick and unctuous; and the second Latin name indicates 

 that it is common, which is true only relatively, i.e. where bogs exist. 



Butterwort is also known as Beanweecl, Bog Violet, Butter Plant, 

 Butter-root, Clowns, Earning-grass, Eccle, Rot Sheep, Thickening 

 Grass, Yorkshire Sanicle, Sheep-root, Sheeprot, Steep-grass, Marsh 

 Violet, White Rot. It is called Sheep-root " because when turned up 

 by the plough sheep greedily feed on it ", and Sheeprot because it was 

 supposed that it caused the liver- rot in sheep, a disease common on 

 wet land where the plant grows, and caused by the Liver Fluke, 

 Distomum hepaticum. 



A writer says: "They call it white Rot, and not white roote, as 

 Gerard saith, for the country people doe thinke their sheepe will catch 

 the rot if for hunger they should eate thereof, and therefore call it the 

 White Rot, of the colour of the herbe, as they have another they call 

 the Red Rot, which is Pedicularis Reel Rattle ". Beanweed was given 

 it because it comes up like a bean in the spring. 



It is called Butterwort from the greasy feel of its leaves, as if melted 

 butter had been poured on them. The name Earning Grass alludes to 

 its property of acting as rennet, to "earn" meaning to curdle. Rot- 

 grass is another name based on the supposed power of the plant to 

 cause rot in sheep. Steep-grass refers also to the curdling property, 

 "steep" being rennet in Lancashire and Cheshire, and Thickening 

 Grass alludes also to the curdling property. 



Gerarde says the juice was rubbed in cows' udders when cracked. 

 In the north in the time of Linnaeus they put fresh leaves in reindeers' 

 milk and strained it, and after a day or two it became tenacious, as 

 the whey and cream do not separate. It does not act on cows' milk 

 in the same way. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



245. Pinguicula vulgaris, L. Flowering stem a scape, leaves 

 radical, in a rosette, oblong, fleshy, with recurved margins, with crystal- 

 line points, flowers purple, corolla gaping, petals oblong, distinct. 



