THE SOLOMON'S-SEAL 77 



two feet long. The plant is found throughout 

 almost all Europe and Northern Asia, but is in 

 Britain decidedly local. It is sometimes called 

 Lady's-seal. Why it should be called Solomon's- 

 seal is not quite obvious. Two or three explana- 

 tions are given, and we need scarcely remind our 

 readers that when a boy makes two or three 

 excuses for some lapse, it is because he feels that 

 not one of them on its own merits is quite good 

 enough to serve, and in the same way multiplicity 

 of explanations indicates weakness. Solomon, we 

 know, wrote a Flora that embraced everything, 

 from the lordly cedar to the lowly hyssop on the 

 wall. In this probably he dealt with the healing 

 virtues of the plants ; at all events, such men as 

 Gerard, Parkinson, and the other old herbalists, 

 who took this ground themselves, naturally assumed 

 that their prototype did so too. Gerard says : 

 " The roots are excellent good for to scale or close 

 up greene wounds, being stamped and laid thereon : 

 wherefore it is called Sigillum Salomonis, of the 

 singular vertue that it hath in sealing or healing vp 

 wounds, broken bones, and such-like. The root of 

 Solomon's Seale, stamped while it is freshe and 

 greene and applied, taketh away in one night, or 

 two at the most, any bruise, blacke or blew spots 

 gotten by falls orwomens wilfulnesse in stumbling 

 upon their hasty husband's fists. That which 

 might be written of this herbe as touching the 



