95 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria). 



One of the prettiest of wayside plants is the golden-starred 

 Agrimony, growing on the waste green flanks of the road and 

 making it beautiful. It is a perennial plant, with a short 

 woody rootstock, and "interruptedly pinnate" leaves, some- 

 what resembling those of the Silver-weed, the leaflets increas- 

 ing in size as they near the terminal leaflet. The flowers are 

 borne on that kind of inflorescence called a raceme, in which 

 each flower is attached to the central stem by a stalk of its 

 own. Were these stalks suppressed the inflorescence would 

 be termed a spike, and indeed some authors have so described 

 the flower- clustering of Agrimony. The flowers are little 

 roses, and consist of a top-shaped spiny calyx, tubular, with 

 contracted mouth and five overlapping lobes ; five golden 

 petals, ten or more stamens, and two carpels sunk in the calyx- 

 tube, their styles and two-lobed stigmas protruding. They do 

 not secrete honey, and are seldom visited by insects. 



As the lower fruits ripen the raceme lengthens, and con- 

 currently the calyx-tubes harden and assume a drooping 

 position, owing to the downward curving of their little foot- 

 stalks. 



There is a variety with resinous-scented, larger, more 

 crowded flowers, of local occurrence. Agrimony was formerly 

 held in some repute as a medicinal plant, and from this 

 circumstance it gets its name. The ancient Greeks had a word 

 argema signifying the affection of the eyes to which we apply 

 the term cataract, and a plant which was reputed to cure 

 argema they called argemone, a word which has since been 

 corrupted into agrimony. " Yarb doctors " still give it a place 

 in their pharmacopoeia. 



Agrimony flowers from June to September. 



