252 HALF-HOURS IN THE GREEN LANES. 



may find in the shadier parts of the green lanes, and 

 in the adjoining heaths and meadows. Its height is 

 not above six inches, and its leaves are beautifully 

 cut and densely packed, the pretty little flowers, 

 whitish, and streaked with lilac and yellow, forming 

 elegant clusters. It has long been celebrated, as its 

 name imports, for its supposed cure of eye-diseases, 



Fig. 189 a. 



Hair of Lychnis floscuculi. 

 Fig. 189. 



Pollen of Bladder Campion (Silene inflata), Broad-leaved Helleborine 

 (Epipactis latifolia), and Field Knautia (ScoMosa arvensis). 



and it is still collected for that purpose and sold 

 by herbalists, although it is difficult to tell in what 

 way it can act as healer. A good deal of the 

 medicinal properties of flowers is hypothetical, and 

 based on what is called the " doctrine of signatures," 

 which taught that most plants bore about them, in 

 colour, shape, or spots, a reference to their healing 

 properties in certain complaints. Hence it was that 

 Lung- wort was believed to be good for consumption, 



