THE MOUNTAIN FLAX. 315 



menced by Charmes, and carried on by Lady Moira 

 and Herr Clausen, with a view to the economy of 

 material by employing the refuse of flax after the 

 manufacture of linen as a substitute for cotton. 



And now we must return from the rich culti- 

 vated vallies, required for the growth of the Lw,um 

 usitatissimum, to the hilly pastures where blossoms 

 the Llin y Tylwyth teg from the tumultuous world 

 of politicians, antiquaries, and utilitarians, to the 

 breezy commons, the home of the fairy flax. Not 

 that I would have it imagined that this child of the 

 mountain is without its use, any more than its more 

 valuable congener is without its beauty and grace. 

 For, in common with the Lmum selagino'ides of 

 Peru, it possesses qualities which make it a valu- 

 able rustic medicine, and place it high in the esti- 

 mation of the Welsh peasants, who have not yet 

 forgotten, nor learned to despise, the simple re- 

 medies growing untended on their own moun- 

 tains and moors. The herb, which is administered 

 in the form of an infusion, is regularly sold in the 

 markets of the Principality, being even still found 

 in that of the modern capital of South Wales, the 

 no longer unsophisticated town of Swansea. 



Pagenstecher has extracted from the mountain 

 flax a principle which he describes as linine, and 

 which, though containing some characteristics simi- 

 lar to those of the oil of common flax, is not to be 

 identified with it. It is, probably, in this peculiar 

 principle that the medicinal property resides, and it 

 would be satisfactory to know whether an identical 

 product occurs in the L. selagino'ides; as these two 



p 2 



