202 OUE ROCK-GARDEN 



gardens in turn will supply all the other plants, and 

 they can proceed at once to take the needful herbal 

 precautions against nightmare, which is about all 

 that the matter comes to. Hop, wormwood, garlic, 

 fennel, we have long cultivated appreciatively, while 

 hedgerife 1 comes unbidden. 



The green hellebore is not a very common plant, 

 but it may occasionally be found in woods and on 

 waste ground. It is one of the few plants that 

 have green flowers. These flowers are ordinarily 

 few in number and drooping, while the glossy, 

 dark green leaves are deeply cut into spreading 

 lobes or segments. Like the henbane, the dwale, 

 plantain, and divers other plants, it seems to find 

 too in the society of mankind a special attraction, 

 so that we may not unfrequently find it on or near 

 ruins, or at the foot of old walls. Gerard declares 

 that " it is good for mad and furious persons, for 

 melancholy, dull, and heavy men ; for those that 

 are troubled with the falling sickness, for lepers, for 

 them that are sicke of a quartane ague, and for all 

 them that are troubled with black choler." Finally, 

 it is no less good to plant in our rock-garden, its 

 verdant flowers and beautifully cut foliage rendering 

 it a very attractive feature therein. 



The monk's-hood is another plant that some 



1 The Galium Aparine, but known popularly nowadays as 

 goosegrass, though it has many other names, as cleavers, harif, 

 catchweed, grip-grass. 



