THE MELILOTS 273 



banks, and elsewhere, it is by no means common. 

 The specific name refers to its officinal use in 

 former days. Like most other plants it was held 

 to have great medicinal value, being used by our 

 ancestors for very widely differing affections, but it 

 would appear to have little or no real efficacy. One 

 of its old names is the plaster clover, in obvious 

 reference to its external application to wounds and 

 inflammations. It has, when dried, a very fragrant 

 odour, much resembling that of the woodruff under 

 similar conditions, and by a process of distillation a 

 scent has been procured. The melilot, too, at one 

 time was much in use as a fodder plant, being 

 relished greatly by cattle and horses, but other 

 plants have superseded it. Gruyere cheese owes 

 its distinctive flavour in great measure to the 

 flowers and seeds of the melilot, these being bruised 

 and mixed with the curd during the process of 

 manufacture ; and the plant has been commended 

 as a useful panacea against the ravages of clothes' 

 moths. An allied species, the white melilot, is 

 equally worth entrance into our rock-garden. It 

 differs from the other in that the blossoms instead 

 of being yellow are pure white. It is a still more 

 doubtful native than the preceding, and was prob- 

 ably introduced inadvertently into this country 

 with corn and with other seeds, or, possibly, with 

 ballast. It is now found scattered fairly freely in 

 many localities. 



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