The Honeysuckle 



twisting stems. Tinged with red, they are some 

 of the earliest to appear in the spring. 



Culpepper, writing in King Charles II.'s reign, 

 makes some quaint reniarks about this plant. 

 " Doctor Tradition," he says, " that grand intro- 

 ducer of errors . . . hath taught the common 

 people to use the leaves or flowers of this plant in 

 mouth-water, and by long continuance of time, hath 

 so grounded it in the brain of the vulgar, that you 

 cannot beat it out with a beetle . . . but come 

 to Doctor Experience, a learned gentleman. . . . 

 Take a leaf and chew it in your mouth, and you 

 will quickly find it hkelier to cause a sore mouth 

 and throat than to cure it." But he goes on, " It 

 is fitting a conserve made of the flowers of it were 

 kept in every gentlewoman's house ; I know of no 

 better cure of an asthma than this ; ... if you 

 please to make use of it as an ointment, it will clear 

 your skin of morphew, freckles and sun-burnings, 

 or whatever else discolours it, and then the maids 



will love it." 



66 41 



