The Folk-lore of Plants 243 



generation to generation accompanied with an explana- 

 tion, a story, often interesting enough, that should enable 

 us to understand the reasonableness of the appellation. 

 For such stories those interested are directed to the wide 

 literature of the present subject. 



I referred in the outset to the fact that names in 

 themselves sometimes bring curious information. A re- 

 markable illustration of this is found in the survival to- 

 day of traces of the ancient doctrine of signatures. In 

 their despair at rightly selecting the proper herbs for 

 the recovery of the sick for we must recall that in all 

 ages the leaves of the tree were "for the healing of the 

 nations, " in the effort to fit the remedy to the trouble, 

 some poetic genius suggested that it was irreverent to 

 suppose that God might have created herbs expressly to 

 cure people and yet have left his children entirely with- 

 out any means, save experiment, for identification. The 

 suggestion was that the form of the plant or its leaf 

 was an index to its specific value, the big " S ! " on the 

 prescription, the signature or direction of the Creator 

 guiding poor mortals to relief from pain. This idea was 

 once thought to have come out of the dark ages, so- 

 called, or in the middle ages when men were attempting 

 to discover the identity of plants referred to in Greek 

 medical works; but Indians and Chinamen have the 

 same notion, so the fancy must be old. At any rate the 

 idea was accepted and lingers yet among us. We have 

 liverwort and spleenwort and lungwort and eyewort or 

 eyebright, moneywort all of us seek to use that 

 heart's ease, etc. There is no end to it. All our phar- 

 macopeia took origin in the traditions of empiricism, the 



