PLANT NOMENCLATURE 87 



a magnified version of the little daisy that we 

 have been dealing with, having the same golden 

 central boss, the same pure white surrounding rays. 

 It will be found figured on Plate XIII. It is 

 common enough in the long grass of the meadows 

 before hay-making time, and on the railway 

 embankments, but its abundance makes it none 

 the less welcome. Pechey, we see in his " Com- 

 pleat Herbal," 1694, declares that "a Decoction of 

 the Herb cures all Diseases that are occasioned by 

 drinking cold Beer when the Body is hot," so that 

 the injudiciously bibulous, and those numerous folk 

 who have the troublesome habit of asking what is 

 the good of everything to whom the beauty of the 

 plant is not a sufficient end may regard it now with 

 greater interest and favour. The ox-eye was held 

 to be an excellent healer of wounds, and a very 

 present remedy of difficulty of breathing. It is a 

 particularly easy plant to grow, and when planted 

 in a goodly clump the large radiate flower-heads tell 

 out brilliantly from the midst of the surrounding 

 verdure. The name ox-eye is one example the 

 more of the popular desire to trace a resemblance 

 between almost anything and some other thing 

 that is really radically different in nature from it ; 

 thus in the great starry vault of heaven, in the 

 midst of unfathomable, unimaginable space, 

 Charles's wain may be seen, though who Charles 

 was, and what his entirely incongruous wagon 



