HERBS CHIEFLY USED IN THE PAST 6^ 



little while before Davors sings of " azure culverkeys." 

 The columbine is rarely found in a wild state and flowers 

 later in the year, the orchis is hardly " azure," so on the 

 whole it looks as if the likeliest flower would be the 

 wild hyacinth. To return to the lady's-smocks, Gerarde 

 says they are of " a blushing, white colour," and like 

 the " white sweet-john." In the seventeenth century 

 their titles were various and he gives some of them, and in 

 doing so he shows an ingenuous, very pleasing clinging 

 to the names familiar to his youth. " In English, 

 cuckowe flowers, in Northfolke, Canterbury bells, at 

 Namptwich in Cheshire, where I had my beginning, 

 ladiesmocks which hath given me cause to christen it 

 after my country fashion." Parkinson finds that " these 

 herbes are seldom used eyther as sauce or sallet or in 

 physick, but more for pleasure to decke up the garlands 

 of the country-people, yet divers have reported them 

 to be as afFectuall in the scorbute or scurvy as the 

 water-cresses." The plant was regarded as an excellent 

 remedy for these evils by the inhabitants of those 

 northern countries where salted fish and flesh are largely 

 eaten. The leaves are slightly pungent and somewhat 

 bitter ; and in the early part of the nineteenth century it 

 was regarded as an ordinary salad herb, so that its reputa- 

 tion in that respect must have risen since Parkinson's 

 days. 



Langdebeefe {Helminthia echo'tdes). 



Langdebeefe is mentioned with scanty praise. " The 

 leaves are onely used in all places that I knew or ever 

 could learne, for an herbe for the pot among others." 

 It is difficult to be absolutely certain as to the identity 

 of the plant, for Gerarde places it with Bugloss, and 

 Parkinson, among the Hawkweeds. Mr Britten says, 

 however, that both writers referred to Helminthia echoides, 

 but that Echium vulgare. Viper's Bugloss, is the plant 



