Mr. J. Hardy on Plants new to Berwickshire. S7T 



Lobel is tlie first to figure it in his Stirp. Observationes, A.D. 

 1576, p. 112. It was then cultivated in the Enghsh and Flemish 

 gardens. He remarks * ' lisdem quibus Cameline oritur natilitiis, ' ' 

 signifying that the conditions of its birthplace were similar to 

 those of Camelina sativa, of which he had just been treating. 

 The title Cameline, Myagrum alterum, Thlapsi effigie was affixed 

 to the figure issued in his Icones, 1581, and gave rise to Gerard's 

 Camelina, and that of Dale's Pharmacologia, a name to which 

 it had no right. Parkinson in his Theatrum Bot., p. 869, A.D. 

 1640, knew it as of wild English growth. " It groweth in many 

 places of oiu' own country, and being once brought into the 

 garden, and there suffered to shed the seed, it will come up 

 yearely again of itself." Gerard, Emac, p. 273, conferred on it 

 the term "Treacle Worm-seed;" Parkinson that of "English 

 Worm-seed." The true " Worm-seed " of the Materia Medica, 

 is Artemisia Santonica, L. (Stokes' Bo^nical Materia Medica, 

 IV., 188) : Lumbricorum semen vulgare, of J. Bauhin and others. 

 "White "Worm-seed," was Corallina officinalis. (Lewis, Materia 

 Medica by Aikin, I., p. 366, compared with the Index). "The 

 seed of Camelina stamped and given to children to drink, killeth 

 the worms, and drive th them forth." (Gerard). Although a 

 mistaken, it appears to have been a genuine English name. It 

 is " called in many places Worme seed," " and is much used by 

 the countrey people where it groweth to kill the wormes in child- 

 ren, the seede being a little bruised and given in drinke or any 

 other way." (Parkinson). "Semen hujus in plurimis Angliee 

 locis contra vermes puerorum usurpatur, quod tusum et potui 

 cujuslibet liquoris mistum, administraturpueris, quorum stomacho 

 et intestinis vermes sunt infesti, unde a mulierculis indigenis 

 abusive Worm-seed appellatur." Morison, Hist. Ox., II., p. 229. 

 Dalechamp was aware of its intensely bitter properties. * ' Saporis 

 in tota planta et omnibus partibus amarissimi." Hist. Gen. 

 Plant., I., 647, Lyons, 1587. Sir J. E. Smith says "it is one of 

 the ingredients of the nauseous Venice Treacle." Tabernsemon- 

 tanus first made the plant an Erysimum. If we correctly under- 

 stand John Bauhin, Gerard in his fii'st edition had mistakingly 

 taken it for the Erysimum of Galen and Theophrastus ; a title 

 also under which it occurs in Eay's Historia. In Pay's notice 

 in the Catalogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam, p. 26, A.D. 1660, 

 is recorded its first special locality. " In the osier holts about 

 the bridge at Ely abundantly, and in all the other osier grounds 

 by the river side there." Sir Pobert Sibbald introduced this as 

 Scottish in his Prodromus, p. 39, but without locality. Neither 

 had Lightfoot seen it. Both he and Sir W. J. Hooker make 

 Sibbald say "in corn fields, but not abundant." He has no 

 remark whatever. Mr. H. G. Watson, records it, however from 

 Sibbald's ground, " very sparingly by the Forth, some miles 

 west of Queensferry, probably brought by coal-vessels, 1831." 



