240 THE BORAGINACE^E. 



A more probable origin is suggested by Miss Strickland. 

 "Henry of Lancaster (Henry IV.)," she says, "appears to 

 have been the person who gave it its emblematical and 

 poetical meaning, by uniting it, at the period of his exile, 

 with the initial letters of his watchword, Souveigne vous de moi; 

 thus rendering it the symbol of remembrance, and, like the 

 subsequent fatal roses of York and Lancaster and Stuart, 

 the lily of Bourbon, and the violet of Napoleon, an historical 

 flower." 



We have said that the scorpion-grass belongs to the natural 

 family Boraginaceae, which receives its name from the common 

 borage, a bright blue flower with very rough leaves. All its 

 members are rough or hairy, except those which, like the 

 forget-me-not, become smooth from living partly under water. 

 The black stalks of the borage burn, it is said, like match- 

 paper, and its root enters largely into the composition of 

 rouge. Its flowers were at one time held in great respect as 

 a wholesome bitter ingredient for a tankard of ale. Accord- 

 ing to Pliny, "if the leaves and flowers of the borage be 

 immersed in wine, and that wine drunken, the potion will 

 make men blithe and merry, and drive away all heavy sadness 

 and dull melancholy." 



Burton, in his " Anatomy of Melancholy/' also says of it 



" Borage and hellebore fill two scenes, 

 Sovereign plants to purge the veins 

 Of melancholy, and cheer the heart 

 Of those black fumes which make it smart." 



