212 EXGLISn BOTANY. 



The great feast of St. Patrick, the tutelar saint of Ireland, is in the early spring, when 

 clover would certainly not be in perfection, but when our tiny Oxalis would be in all 

 its beauty. This circumstance inclines us to think that it was the little plant we have 

 now before us that was honoured by the touch of St. Patrick when he di-ew from the 

 triple leaflet the illustration he sought to give his simple hearers of the great doctrine 

 of the Trinity or a triune nature. The term " .shamrock" has pos.'jibly been applied to 

 all three-leaved plants both in poetry and prose ; but several jiassages we have seen 

 appear to point especially to the Oxalis as the true and generally accejited shamrock. 

 Piers, in sjieaking of the early sjiring-time in Ireland, says : " For then the milk 

 becomes plenty, and butter and new cheese, and curds and shamrocks are the food of 

 the meaner sort all this season." And Withers, in his " Abuses Stript and Whipt," 

 written in 1613, says : — 



" And for my cloathing in a mantle gne. 

 And feed on shamroots as the Irish doe." 



Spenser, in his "View of the State of Ireland during a Famine," writes : " Out of every 

 corner of the wods and glynnis they come creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs 

 could not bear them ; they looked like anatomies of death ; they spoke like ghosts 

 crying out of their graves ; they did eat the dead carrions ; and if they found a plot 

 of watercresses or shamrocks they flocked as to a feast." These and many other quota- 

 tions might be given as indicating that the Wood Sorrel was the original Irish sham- 

 rock ; however, nowadays Irishmen are for the most part content to mount a sprig of 

 the three-leaved clover (Trifolium repens) on St. Patrick's day ; for the cultivation 

 which has brought in the more useful plant has been in a great measure fatal to our 

 political little Oxalis. Certain it is that this plant was held in mystic veneration by 

 tlie Druids, by whom it was considered a symbol of some mysterious doctrine known 

 Only to the initiated. The legend of the magic influence of a four-leaved shamrock 

 originated no doubt in the extreme rarity of this occurrence in the Oxalis. The clover 

 is frequently found with four or even five leaflets, but the Oxalis rarely or never has more 

 than three. Its triple leaflets ai'e frequently to be found in the sculptured ornaments 

 of old Gothic churches and ecclesiastical buildings. With all these mysterious sur- 

 roundings, it would have been strange if our much-believing foi'efathers had not found 

 some wonderful medical properties in so favoured a plant. To the monkish hei'balists 

 it was known under the name of " Hallelujah," which Gerarde accounts for thus : " The 

 apothecaries and herbalists call it AUeluya and Panis Cuculi or Cuckowes Meat; 

 because either the cuckoo feedeth thereon, or by reason when it epringeth forth and 

 floureth the Cuckou singeth most, at which time also Alleluya was wout to be sung in 

 churches." It is thought to be that which Pliny (lib. xxvii. cap. 12) calleth Oxys, 

 writing thus : " Oxys is three-leaved ; it is good for a feeble stomack. Surrell du Bois 

 or Wood Sorrell stamped and used for greene sauce is good for them that have sicke 

 and feeble stomackes, for it strengtheneth the stomacke, procureth appetite, and 

 of all sauces Sorrell is the best, not only in virtue but also in the pleasantness of his 

 taste. It is also a remedy against ulcers of the mouth, it quencheth thirst and cooleth 

 mightily any hot pestilential fever, especially being made with a syrup of sugar." 



Wood Sorrel was at one time the principal ingredient in the famous green sauce for 

 fish, once so celebrated and still used on the Continent, though the Eumex acetosa gene- 

 rally takes its place. The leaves contain a large quantity of binoxalate of potash, which 

 gives them an agi-eeable acid flavour. When the juice is evaporated, this salt is deposited 

 in cr3'stals, and so prepared was formerly sold as " salt of lemons " or " salts of sorrel," for 



