10 FAMILIAR TREES 



which dates from the time of Theophrastus, and 

 signifies "well-named," from its bad rather than its 

 good qualities. As the Irish peasant to-day 

 euphemistically speaks of the fairies as " the good 

 people" because he is afraid of them, so the ancient 

 Greeks called their avenging deities, or Furies, the 

 Eumenides, or " kind folk," and their mother 

 Euonyme, "her whose name is good." From the 

 fetid smell emitted by the whole plant wdien bruised, 

 and from its poisonous though lovely fruits, the 

 Spindle-tree has apparently been given the name 

 of this once dreaded being. The chief distinctive 

 structural characters are the leaves in opposite pairs 

 and evergreen, or nearly so, though the stipules fall 

 off early ; the relatively large fleshy disc within the 

 calyx in which petals, stamens, and ovary are alike 

 inserted ; and the angular or winged capsule, which, 

 though dehiscent, is somewhat fleshy in texture. 



Our one British species (E. europams L.) is also a 

 native of Western Siberia, North Africa, and the 

 whole of Europe from Sweden and Scotland to the 

 Caucasus. Its popular names in English, French, and 

 German, " Spindle-tree," " Fusain," and " Spindel- 

 baum," all alike refer to the use of its wood for 

 spindles, which still prevails where hand-spinning 

 survives as an industry. The Old English names 

 " Prick-wood " or " Prick-timber," which latter is used 

 by Gerard, and the French " Bois-a-lardoire," allude to 

 its employment for skewers or larding-pins, formerly 

 called " pricks," whilst another French name, " Bonnet 

 de Pretre," alludes to the resemblance of its four- 

 plaited capsule to a priest's biretta ; and the Flemish 



