APRIL. 43 



the season when these beautiful spring animals, 

 lambs, are seeking their food on the mead. Our 

 forefathers called it white pot-herb ; and Ge- 

 rarde, the old botanist of queen Elizabeth's time, 

 says of it, " In winter and the first months of 

 spring, it serves for a salade herbe, and is mth 

 pleasure eaten with vinegar, salt and oile, as 

 other salades be, among which it is none of 

 the worst." 



One would scarcely suppose that a plant so 

 msignificant as to be overlooked by many who 

 must often pass it, coidd have been at all im- 

 portant as food ; but vegetables, either for cook- 

 ing, or salad, were, in those days, little cultivated 

 in our country, and brought to so little perfec- 

 tion, that the lamb's lettuce would be a less 

 contemptible dish then than now. 



The fragrant leaves of the ground-ivy (Gle' 

 choma hederacea) are winding now on their 

 long stems by every wayside, and, if bruised, 

 diffusing their sw-eet odour, while their whorls of 

 purplish lilac flowers are daily becoming more 

 abundant. This is another plant which was 

 more highly valued some centuries since, than 

 in modern days, though it is still used in 

 making a tea for the cure of coughs. The 

 " herbe women of Cheapside," who, in queen 

 Elizabeth's time, were very numerous on that 

 spot, walking up and down the street with their 

 baskets of "simples" on their heads, had, at 

 all seasons, either the newly-gathered, or dried 

 ground-ivy, and regularly cried it for sale about 

 this and other streets of London. They called 



