YELLOW OAT-GRASS VERVAltt. 71 



id this injury as the yellow, oat-grass (avcria flavescens), 

 and in some seasons almost the whole of its panicles 

 will be withered in a field of surrounding verdure. 

 Pastures that are grazed must from circumstances be 

 drier than those covered with herbage fit for the scythe ; 

 yet, from some unknown cause, this oat-grass seems 

 less injured in this respect in grazing grounds, than in 

 those where the herbage is reserved for mowing. 



The plain, simple, unadorned vervain*( verbena offi- 

 cinalis) is one of our most common, and decidedly 

 waste-loving plants. Disinclined to all cultured places, 

 it fixes its residence by way-sides, and old stone quarries, 

 thriving under the feet of every passing creature. The 

 celebrity that this plant obtained in very remote times, 

 without its possessing one apparent quality, or present- 

 ing by -its manner of growth, or form, any mysterious 

 character to arrest the attention, or excite imagination 

 is very extraordinary, and perhaps unaccountable : mos 

 nations venerated, esteemed, and used it; the ancients 

 had their Verbenalia, at which period the temples and 

 frequented places were strewed and sanctified with ver- 

 vain ; the beasts for sacrifice, and the altars, were ver- 

 benated, the one filleted, the other strewed, with the 

 sacred herb ; no incantation or lustration was perfect 

 without the aid of this plant. That mistletoefshould 

 have excited attention in days of darkness and igno- 

 rance, is not a subject of surprise, from the extraordi- 

 nary and obscure manner of its growth and propagation, 

 and the season of the year in which it flourishes ; for 

 even the great lord Bacon ridicules the idea of its being 

 propagated by the operations of a bird as an " idle tra-, 

 dition," saying, that the sap which produces this plant 

 is such as the " tree doth excerne and cannot assimilate." 

 These circumstances, and its great dissimilarity from 

 the plant on which it vegetates, all combine to render 

 it a subject of superstitious wonder : but that a lowly, 

 ineffective herb like our vervain should have stimulated 

 the imaginations of the priests of Rome, of Gaul, and 

 of Greece, the magi of India, and the Druids of Britain, 

 is passing comprehension ; and, as Pennant observes, 

 " so general a consent proves that the custom arose be- 



See note J, appendix. f See note K, appendix. 



