FLOWERS OF THE FIELD 75 



corne of goode doctrine, as Sathan is to sow Cockel 

 and Darnel." And so with Gower, and Spenser, and 

 Shakespeare. But if the poets and preachers speak 

 in general terms, the old herbalists were beginning 

 to discriminate between cockle and darnel and other 

 weeds. Cockle was becoming restricted to the purple 

 corn-cockle (Agrostemma Githago, L.), and darnel to 

 the wheat-like grass (Lolium temulentum, L.). Dr. 

 Turner notices in his Names of Herbes, published 

 in 1548, this confusion of terms. "Some/' he says, 

 " take cockel for lolio, but thei are far decyved as I 

 shal declare at large if God wil, in my Latin herbal." 

 A few years later the identification of darnel with 

 Lolium is clear; and in his famous Herbal, under a 

 fairly good representation of the plant, Gerarde says, 

 " Among the hurtfull weeds Darnell is the first," and 

 he goes on to describe accurately the species, which 

 he identifies, and doubtless rightly, with the zizania 

 of Gospel history. 



Darnel is an annual corn-field weed, fortunately 

 not generally distributed, at any rate in these days, 

 the seeds of which bear a striking resemblance to 

 grains of wheat. The injurious properties of the plant 

 were well known to the ancients, for Virgil speaks of 

 it as infelix lolium. The stem and foliage are inno- 

 cuous, and in some countries, as at Malta, where the 

 species is abundant, the plant is used as fodder : it is 

 the seed only that is poisonous, and many instances 

 are on record of its baneful effects, which are said to 

 resemble intoxication. This was noticed by Gerarde, 

 who says that "the new bread wherein Darnell is, eaten 

 hot, causeth drunkennesse ; in like manner doth beere 

 or ale wherein the seed is fallen, or put into the malt." 

 Indeed, in the Middle Ages it seems to have been a 



