V. BRUtfELLA. 107 



throat affections, Branne, extended itself into the first 

 name of the plant, Brunelle. 



10. The truth of all popular traditions as to the heal- 

 ing power of herbs will he tried impartially as soon as 

 men again desire to lead healthy lives ; but I shall not in 

 Proserpina' retain any of the names of their gathered 

 and dead or distilled substance, but name them always 

 from the characters of their life. I retain, however, for 

 this plant its name Brunella, Fr. Brunelle, because we 

 may ourselves understand it as a derivation from Brune ; 

 and I bring it here before the reader's attention as giving 

 him a perfectly instructive general type of the kind of 

 degradation which takes place in the forms of flowers 

 under more or less malefic influence, causing distortion 

 and disguise of their floral structure. Thus it is not the 

 normal character of a flower petal to have a cluster of 

 bristles growing out of the middle of it, nor to be jagged at 

 the edge into the likeness of a fanged fish's jaw, nor to be 

 swollen or pouted into the likeness of a diseased gland in 

 an animal's throat. A really uncorrupted flower suggests 

 none but delightful images, and is like nothing but itself. 



11. I find that in the year 1719, Tournefort defined, 

 with exactitude which has rendered the definition author- 

 itative for all time, the tribe to which this Brownie 

 flower belongs, constituting them his fourth class, and 

 describing them in terms even more depreciatingly im- 

 aginative than any I have ventured to use myself. I 

 translate the passage ^voL i., p. 177) : 



