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WOUND-WORT. STACHYS. 

 HEDGE WOUND-WORT. Stachys sylvatica. 



Plate 8, fig. 17. 

 Stem solid. Leaves long, heart-shaped, stalked. 



Frequent under hedges and in moist shady places, flowering 

 in July and August, attaining the height of two or three feet, 

 branched upwards, with eight or ten rather closely-set whirls 

 of flowers, six in each whirl. Corolla reddish-purple, spotted 

 with a darker red. Leaves between ovate and heart-shaped, 

 deeply serrated, and stalked, and as well as the stem and 

 calyx very rough with hairs. The whole plant is of a strong, 

 disagreeable smell. Root fibrous. 



MARSH WOUND-WORT. Stachys palustris. 



Plate 8, fig. 18. 

 Leaves long, lance-shaped, sessile. 



This grows chiefly on river banks, and in those open ditches 

 which intersect marsh land, growing two or three feet high, 

 with the whirled spike of flowers rather narrower than that of 

 the last plant. Leaves not so wide nor so rough, but longer, 

 without stalks, and clasping the stem, particularly those growing 

 on the upper part. The root too is very different, being in our 

 present plant composed of a number of tubers or fleshy bodies, 

 joined together in a string. 



The name, Wound-wort, which this and the other species 

 bear, shows their former use they are not now considered of 

 any value. Gerarde, a physician and botanist, who lived 

 two hundred and fifty years ago, called it the " Clown's 

 Wound-wort, " and that for the following very ridiculous 

 reason. He says, " that a poor man wounded his leg with a 

 scythe, and that I offered to heale the same for charitie, which 

 he refused, saying * I could not heale it so well as himself:' 

 a clownish answer I confess, without any thankes for my 

 goodwill, whereupon I have named the plant he used " Clowne's 

 Wound-wort," as aforesaid. 



O. S. Ambiguous Wound-wort, which in character is between the two 

 described ; Downy Wound- wort, the leaves of which are quite white and 

 downy ; Corn Wound-wort, and Pale Annual Wound-wort, a yellow flowered 

 sort found only in one place near Rochester. 



