THE TWO BUTTERBURS 47 



their near relative, the colt's-foot, are to the fore 

 before the leaves are much, or at all, in evidence. 

 Their pale lilac heads, thrown up some eight inches 

 or so, are much less conspicuous than the golden 

 stars of the colt's-foot, but they have a quiet charm 

 of their own. While the colt's-foot thrives best in 

 dry, gravelly soil, the butterbur must be given a 

 damp situation. One can dig up the roots by the 

 sides of most streams, but we must scarcely go in 

 for it if we are pressed for room, as the real beauty 

 of the plant is seen in the noble leaves that are 

 thrown up later, and which require plenty of space 

 to do them justice. 



Parkinson, we see, says of them that " when they 

 are full growne they are very large and broad, that 

 they may very well serve to cover the whole body, 

 or at the least the head, like an Umbrella from Sunne 

 and Raine." An old name for the plant was the 

 pestilence- wort, for " the rootes hereof are by long 

 experience found very available against the plague 

 and pestilentiall fevers." A decoction, too, of the 

 roots in wine is " singular good for those that wheeze 

 much." In Plate I. our frontispiece we have 

 an illustration of the fragrant butterbur a much less 

 common plant. It is a native of Italy and Southern 

 Europe generally, but sometimes establishes itself 

 in England as an escape from the garden, and is in 

 some districts naturalised. Phillips, in his " Flora 

 Historica," written in 1524, speaks of it as " planted 



