92 MILKWORT. 



favour. The practice continued in use even 

 as late as the commencement of the last cen- 

 tury, at Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire ; and 

 records of these Rogation processions occur as 

 early as a.d. 550. 



The !Milk^yort is also in some places called 

 Hedge Hyssop, and has been thought to possess 

 some of the valuable remedial virtues of the 

 plant termed the American Rattlesnake root, 

 which is a species of the same genus. Sir 

 J. E. Smith was advised by a physician at 

 Montpelier to take an infusion of the Milkwort 

 for a cough, and did so with great success. 

 Foreign writers celebrate the plant as a grateful 

 and nutritious food for cattle. It is certainly 

 very ornamental to the spots on which it growls, 

 w^here it blooms beside the Evebrio-ht, the 

 Wild Thyme, the beautiful Rock Rose, and the 

 other wild flowers of the chalky cliff or hill-side. 

 We have some very pretty species of Polygala 

 in our gardens, brought chiefly from North 

 America and the Cape of Good Hope. 



