PLANTS GROWING IN WASTE SOIL. 319 



TANSY. 



Tanacetum vulgare. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Composite. Yellow. Strongly scented. General. A II summer. 



Flowers : tiny ; tubular ; growing in a flat-topped umbel. Leaves : pinnately 

 divided into linear, deeply incised leaflets. Stem : two to four feet high, 

 branched at the top. 



" Soone at Easter cometh alleluya 

 With butter, cheese and a tansay." 



In certain parts of Ireland, where customs are perhaps not as 

 changeable as they are in this newer world of ours, we might 

 at Easter partake in the festival with which the name of tansy 

 has been associated, ever since the eleventh century. It then 

 came about that tansy was made into cakes for distribution 

 among the poor, and the figures of two charitable sisters were 

 stamped upon them. 



The medicinal properties that tansy possessed made it desir- 

 able to use at this season of the year, to purge away from the 

 system the phlegm that had been engendered by the eating of 

 fish during the lenten season. 



" On Easter Sunday be the pudding seen 

 To which the tansy lends her sober green." 



ELECAMPANE. 



Inula Helenhtm. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Composite. Yellow. Herbaceous. General. Summer. 



Flower-heads : large ; terminal and composed of both ray and disk flowers ; 

 the former few, long and narrow. Leaves : large ; alternate ; clasping ; oblong ; 

 serrated ; the lower sides pale and woolly. Stem : four to five feet high ; stout. 

 Roots : thick ; containing a mucilaginous substance. 



There are flowers that speak to us of the sunshine, and there 

 are those that cast about a shadow. Happily we associate the 

 elecampane with the sun because its face is so bright and 

 golden. It has also done many good deeds to man and beast 

 during its long residence on the globe. In veterinary practice 

 it is used largely in epidemics, and when made into a tea it is ex- 



