BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 415 
Hpipactis, Derivation of.— This, i Greek writers, is a synonym of 
Elleborine ; and it is uncertain to what species or genus of plants it was 
anciently applied. It is a compound word; ez in composition is used 
to express relations of time and place, as succession, contiguity, etc; 
maktis, Doric for myxtis, is from mpyvups, which, among other senses, has 
the meaning of a pointed elevation, to grow erect and tapering into a 
point, the habit which these plants usually assume. 
English Names of Plants.—Hear? s-ease (p. 143).—It is probable that 
this plant was formerly employed in the preparation of a cordial. It was 
a sort of specific used in many cases. Ipecacuanha, a well-known power- 
ful deobstruent, is derived from a plant of this Order. The removal of 
pais might give ease to the heart, hence the name. Again, the plant 
anciently bore the name Herba Trinitatis, “herb of the Trinity,” in allu- 
sion to its three colours, from which we derive its trivial name ¢ricolor. 
It is termed Hear?’s-ease by Gerarde, Parkinson, and consequently by our 
older herbalists. 
Chelsea. 
J. B., St. Alban’s (p. 143), is informed that Heart’s-ease is not a modern 
name of the Pansy. It occurs in Bunyan’s celebrated Vision, where he repre- 
sents the guide speaking of a boy singing by his sheep, or singing to them : 
“Do you hear him?” said he; “I will dare to say that this boy leads a 
merrier life, and wears more of the Heart’s-ease in his bosom, than he that 
is clothed in silk and purple.” Gerarde employs this name, and he lived 
nearly a century before Bunyan. The same ancient writer on plants and 
their history calls the same plant “ Live in Idleness.” Shakspere, in the 
‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ calls it “Love in Idleness.” He says, 
«¢ And maidens call it Love in Idleness.”’ Is this a corruption, or another 
name for the plant? Gerarde gives us in addition the following names of 
the Pansy: “Cull me to you;” “Three Faces in.a Hood ;” Herb Trinity 
(Herba Trinitatis). Mrs. Loudon, in her work on British Wild Flowers, 
gives other common names, and to this lady’s work we refer those who are 
curious in such matters. 
Furze.—Vinneeus lamented that he could not preserve this plant alive in 
a greenhouse ; and Dillenius, when he first visited England, knelt down in 
admiration of the quantities he saw in flower on Hounslow Heath. About. 
1825 the double-flowered variety was found wild in Devonshire, and has | 
since been extensively cultivated as an ornamental evergreen flowering- 
shrub. 
Ivy.—Cato and Pliny ascribe a singular property to the wood of the 
Ivy, viz. that it may be used as a filter, and that it can separate wine from 
water. These authors say that if a cup of Ivy-wood be filled with wine 
that has been adulterated with water, the wine will find its way through 
the pores of the wood, and the water alone remain in the cup. It is stated 
that this experiment was tried by a trustworthy person, and the reverse 
took place—the water filtered through and the wine remained. 
CURIOSUS. 
Birch (Betula alba).—This tree, or rather its leafy, slender branches, 
were used, Gerarde says, “to the decking-up of houses and banqueting 
roomes for places of pleasure, and beautifying the streetes in the crosse, or 
