THE FOLK-LOEE OF PLANTS 



In the first place let it be conceded that the folk-lore 

 of plants would seem to offer little of value in the 

 matter of modern scientific research. Folk-lore is tra- 

 dition, at best ; and a tradition of times when of accurate 

 knowledge, of science, there was none. It is a far-away 

 echo of the earlier voices of humanity concerning itself 

 and its environment, especially concerning the phenom- 

 ena of the living world. Folk-lore is the survival among 

 us in our adolescence or is it senescence 1 of those 

 fears and fancies, guesses and beliefs, which tortured, 

 amused, or comforted our racial infancy and childhood. 

 The knowledge of such things, even if accurate, can be of 

 service only in so far as it may help to frame a picture 

 of the mental attitude, mental strength of men of the far- 

 off past ; only as it may help us to conclusions where our 

 inheritance from antiquity perchance more profoundly 

 affects the present. If we know a man's attitude toward 

 nature we are in position better to understand, to appre- 

 ciate his literature, his art, his faith. 



The blind man, on recovering sight, saw "men as trees 

 walking," i.e., he could not distinguish between men and 

 trees. Primitive men, our intellectual ancestors, waking 

 to consciousness, seem to have experienced a precisely 

 similar difficulty; they failed to differentiate themselves 

 from the world about them. To primitive man, every- 

 thing had personality; all forces of Nature, of course, 



