food material for the production of the 
flower was stored in the underground 
stem during the preceding season. 
Thus the green leaf is not needed early 
in the growth of the plant. 
The adult leaf is kidney-shaped, 
smooth, and five to nine lobed. When 
fully grown they are often more than 
six inches in diameter.. The leaf-stalk, 
which may be over one foot in length, 
and the radiating veins vary in color 
from yellowish to orange. Few leaves 
are more beautiful and graceful than 
these, both during their development 
and when fully mature. 
It issaid that the Indians formerly 
used the juice of this plant as a dye, 
and thus it is sometimes called red In- 
dian paint and red puccoon. 
TANSY CAKES. 
-ANY of our garden herbs still in 
M common use for purposes of 
seasoning are in reality British 
plants, says Longman’s Maga- 
zine. Among them may be mentioned 
mint and marjoram and thyme and 
calamint, all of which may be found in 
their native haunts. Fennel is abun- 
dant on sea cliffs in many places in the 
south of England. Wild hyssop is per- 
fectly naturalized on the picturesque 
ruins of Beaulieu Abbey and wild balm 
used to be found within the ancient 
walls | of: Portchester ~castle, ~ The 
garden parsley was formerly abundant 
on the shingly beach at Hurst castle, 
where it used to be gathered for 
domestic purposes. One native herb, 
however, much in use among our fore- 
fathers is now seldom seen in kitchen 
gardens—we mean 7anacetum vulgare, 
the common tansy, the dull yellow 
flowers of which are often conspicuous 
by the side of streams. The young 
leaves and juice of this plant were for- 
merly employed to give color and 
flavor to puddings, which were known 
as tansy cakes, or tansy puddings. 
In medizval times the use of these 
cakes was specially associated with the 
season of Easter.and it is interesting to 
notice “that in; the diet rolls: of..St 
Swithin’s monastery at Winchester, 
which belong to the end of the fifteenth 
century, we come across the entry 
“‘tansey tarte.” It has been said that 
the use of tansy cakes at this season 
was to strengthen the digestion after 
what an old writer calls “the idle con- 
ceit of eating fish and pulse for forty 
days in Lent,” and it is certain that 
this was the virtue attributed to the 
plant by the old herbalists. ‘‘ The herb 
fried with eggs whichis calleda ‘tansy,’”’ 
says Culpepper, ‘‘helps to digest and 
carry away those bad humors that 
trouble the stomach.” It seems more 
probable that the custom of eating tansy 
cakes at Easter time was associated 
with the teaching of that festival, the 
name ‘‘tansy” being a corruption of a 
Greek word meaning “immortality.” 
THE PARTRIDGE CALL. 
Shrill and shy from the dusk they cry, 
Faintly from over the hill; 
Out of the gray where shadows lie, 
Out of the gold where sheaves are 
high, 
Covey to covey, call and reply, ° 
Plaintively, shy and shrill. 
Dies the day, and from far away 
Under the evening star 
Dies the echo as dies the day, 
Droops with the dew in the new-mown 
hay, 
Sinks and sleeps in the scent of May, 
Dreamily, faint and far. 
—Frank Saville in the Pall Mali Magazine. 
