1?0 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



healeth the lungs and cureth the jaundice. The 

 root powdered and mixed with the white of an 

 egg, and eaten, heals choler and melancholy." 

 While the cinquefoil favours moist situations the 

 sister plant, the tormentil, is more commonly to 

 be found on heath-lands and open, dry commons. 

 The flower is cruciform and of a bright yellow, and 

 the foliage richly cut into fine segments. 



The silverweed Potentilla anserina like the 

 cinquefoil, is a great runner, and may possibly 

 require to be checked at times, though one will 

 hesitate long before ruthlessly tearing up its masses 

 of silvery-grey foliage. The graceful form and curl 

 of its long leaves has caused it to receive, in some 

 parts of the country, the name of prince's feather. 

 In very luxuriant surroundings the plant grows 

 somewhat grossly, and the leaves become flaccid 

 and green, losing altogether the beautiful silky tex- 

 ture and delicate grey tint that make so welcome a 

 contrast to its verdant surroundings. This silvery- 

 grey naturally suggested its popular name of silver- 

 weed, and its less common title argentina. Why 

 it should be called anserina or, to quote another 

 popular name for it, the goosegrass, scarcely 

 appears. One could naturally suggest that these 

 names arise from the plant growing on open 

 commons, beloved of geese, but the old writers 

 discard this idea and declare that the geese when 

 feeling a bit out of sorts value it as a medicine for 



