B02 Canadian Record of Science. 
ties will prevent its use under conditions where only disap- 
pointments can follow; a circumstance which in the end 
would tend to bring discredit upon a most valuable mineral. 
THE FoLK-LORE oF PLANTS. 
By Carri M. Dericr, B.A. 
The subject of plant-lore has been so admirably treated 
by Thistleton Dyer and others, that it would be difficult to 
present anything fresh in a paper such as this, without 
more time for investigation than the writer has at her dis- 
posal. Some pains, however, have been taken to arrange in 
brief form bits of follk-lore distinctively American as of 
especial interest to Canadians. 
The early settlers seem to have been too much occupied 
_ with the practical side of life to weave new fancies about 
the primeval forest. Therefore, while some of our fables 
are indigenous, the majority of our common plant names and 
superstitions are heirlooms from our European ancestors. 
But there is a rich field for discovery awaiting the patient 
investigator, in the beliefs of the American Indians and the 
poetic fancies of the French Canadian people. 
“To the Indian the material world is sentient and intelli- 
gent. A mysterious and inexplicable power resides in 
inanimate things. In the silence of a forest, is a living 
majesty, indefinite but redoubtable. Through all the works 
of nature nothing exists that may not be endowed with 
a secret power for blessing or for bane.”’ The Indian, in 
common with other uncultured men, observing that plants 
as well as man possessed the phenomena of life and death, 
endowed each with a soul like his own, and regarded it 
with simple reverence. So, we learn, that the Ojibwés 
hesitated to cut down trees lest they should hear them 
wailing in their suffering. 
Closely allied to this idea of spiritual vitality was the 
wide-spread belief that plants were the homes of deities. 
Schoolcraft. mentions an Indian tribe who fancied they 
1 Parkman’s The Jesuits in North America. 
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