204 PROSERPINA. 



tremely fond of this milk, which when once made, it is not 

 necessary to renew the use of the leaves, for we are told that 

 a spoonful of it will turn another quantity of warm milk, and 

 make it like the first." * (Baxter, vol. iii., No. 209.) 



14. In the same page, I find quoted Dr. Johnston's obser- 

 vation that " when specimens of this plant were somewhat 

 rudely pulled up, the flower-stalk, previously erect, almost 

 immediately began to bend itself backwards, and formed a 

 more or less perfect segment of a circle ; and so also, if a 

 specimen is placed in the Botanic box, you will in a short 

 time find that the leaves have curled themselves backwards, 

 and now conceal the root by their revolution." 



I have no doubt that this elastic and wiry action is partly 

 connected with the plant's more or less predatory or fly-trap 

 character, in which these curiously degraded plants are asso- 

 ciated with Drosera. I separate them therefore entirely from 

 the Bladderworts, and hold them to be a link between the 

 Violets and the Droseracese, placing them, however, with the 

 Cytherides, as a sub-family, for their beautiful colour, and 

 because they are indeed a grace and delight in ground which, 

 but for them, would be painfully and rudely desolate. 



* Withering quotes this as from Linnaeus, and adds on authority of a 

 Mr. Hawkes, "This did not succeed when tried with cows' milk." 

 He also gives as another name, Yorkshire Sanicle ; and says it is called 

 earning grass in Scotland. Liniiseus says the juice will curdle reindeer s 

 milk. The name for rennet is earning, in Lincolnshire. Withering 

 also gives this note : ' ' Pinguis, fat, from its effect in CONGEALING 

 milk." (A.) Withering of course wrong: the name comes, be the 

 reader finally assured, from the fatness of the green leaf, quite peculiar 

 among wild plants, and fastened down for us in the French word 

 ' Grassette.' I have found the flowers also difficult to dry, in the be- 

 nighted early times when 1 used to think a dried plant useful ! See 

 closing paragraphs of the 4th chapter. B, 





