44 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



cough. Roots, flowers, and leaves have all been 

 held in repute, but the latter have been most com- 

 monly employed, being dried when fully grown. 

 Rubbed to a coarse powder they may be smoked as 

 a remedy for cough or difficulty of breathing, or 

 a decoction of them in the fresh state may be 

 employed. 



Before modern research placed at the service of 

 the physician plants of healing virtue from every 

 quarter of the globe, our forefathers made an 

 immense use of the Flora of their own land. In any 

 old botanical book "the vertues " of the plants set 

 forth form a very important feature, and this neces- 

 sarily led to a more general knowledge of our com- 

 mon plants than at present obtains. In some cases, 

 without doubt, plants of foreign origin are possessed 

 of greater potency, and have, therefore, rightly 

 superseded the home-grown article ; but it is very 

 possible that matters have gone too far in this 

 direction, and that many of our native plants pos- 

 sess a healing virtue that few now credit them with. 

 " Forasmuch as every Countrey," Frugis reminds us 

 in his " Vade Mecum," 1651, "is not furnished with 

 all sorts of things (God having so disposed thereof) 

 that some should abound with those things which 

 others stand in need of, the omnipotent Providence 

 hath taught us the means of transporting by water 



corides, and other very early writers, all unite in their 

 testimony of the healing virtue of this lowly herb. 



