88 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



is doing up there, nobody knows or cares, while 

 a waterfall, sufficiently beautiful in itself, has to 

 many people a greatly added charm when held to 

 be reminiscent of a bridal veil. Most people like 

 to feel that they are folk of rather exceptional 

 penetration, and to detect that little Mary aged 

 three is the very image of her uncle John, aged 

 eighty-one, affords them an immense gratification : 

 very naturally, therefore, plant-names dealing with 

 comparison and suggested resemblance form a very- 

 large class. The man who first detected any like- 

 ness between the eye of an ox and the expanded 

 florets of the plant before us, and saddled the flower 

 with a name so barbaric, must either have been 

 gifted with a specially strong imagination, or possibly 

 we may decide on fuller consideration, a particularly 

 weak one. 



The two alkanets should find a place in our 

 garden. The so-called common alkanet is one of 

 our rarer British plants, and has but little claim to 

 a place in our flora. It is the Anchusa officinalis of 

 the botanist, and it is just this officinal character that 

 has brought it to our shores in earlier days. 1 It 

 may be found on waste ground occasionally, and 



1 " It is an herb under the dominion of Venus, and indeed 

 one of her darlings, though somewhat hard to come by. It 

 helps old ulcers, hot inflammations, burnings by common fire 

 and by St. Anthony's fire, by antipathy to Mars : for these 

 uses your best way is to make it into an ointment : also if you 

 make a vinegar of it it helps the leprosy." CULPEPPER. 



