338 Canadian Record of Science. 
(Plantago major). The Indians, believing it followed in the 
steps of white men, so named it. 
“Whereso’er they tread, beneath them, 
Springs a flower unknown amongst us, 
Springs the white man’s foot in blossom.” 
In Clarenceville, P.Q., Rudbeckia hirta is called “ nigger- 
heads,” a name which originated in the South-Western 
States. 
Children’s games and fancies have given rise to peculiar 
local names. In New Brunswick, Viola tricolor is called 
‘old man” from its resemblance to an old man with his 
feet ina bath-tub. In Clarenceville, P.Q., Viola cucullata is 
known as “roosters,” a favourite game with children being 
a bloodless battle between two violets. The one, which 
preserves its blossoms during the struggle, is pronounced 
the victor. The appearance of the plant itself or the use to 
which it is put explains such names as “ butter-and-eggs ” 
(Linaria vulgaris), crane’s-bill (Geranium Robertianum), 
Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisema_ triphyllum), ghost-flower 
(Monotropa uniflora), face-and-eye-berries (Juniperus sabina), 
and dyer’s weed (Reseda luteola.) 
American folk-lore is eminently practical and largely 
made up of superstitions relating to  follk-medicine. 
“The doctrine of signatures,” which is the old theory 
that “plants, by their external character, indicated the 
disease they were intended to cure,” has its adher- 
ents, at the present day. Doubtless, some of the plants 
used in old medicine had useful remedial properties 
but the majority owed their popularity to mystic virtues. 
One of Miss Wilkins’ pretty stories takes its name “ Life 
Everlasting,” from the fancy that a pillow of the flowers 
of Gnaphalium polycephalum will cure asthma. The practice 
of carrying a potato in the pocket, as a charm against 
rheumatism is common. In New Brunswick, a double 
cedar knot serves the same purpose. Pliny says that 
snakes will sooner go through fire than creep over ash leaves 
or into the shadow of an ash-tree.’ Even yet, in the United 
1 See Culpeper’s Herbal; and Fiske’s Myths and Myth-Makers. 
