CONIXIM. — CHjEROPHYLLUM. 87 



255. CoNiuM MAcuLATUM. ^cmlock : f^tmlofet : ftomlofet, — 



but the name is applied by our peasantry to several of the large Um- 

 belliferse. The true plant is common in hedges and rubbishy places 

 about Berwick and its vicinity, and perhaps about most of the villages 

 on the east of our district ; but, in the western parts, it is apparently 

 rare. It grows in the neighbourhood of Dunse ; but, in the course 

 of a long and devious walk, between that town and Polwarth, it was 

 only met with, and sparingly, at Choicelee. Near Old Melrose I 

 have seen it nearly 10 feet in height. — June-July. — The odour from 

 the Hemlock, on a dewy eve or morn, is very sickly and depressing, 

 like that of mice in a confined room. It is a valuable medicinal 

 plant. A decoction of the leaves, or a poultice made of them with 

 the mallow, is a common application to painful sores and imposthumes. 

 In autumn the ripened stem is cut into pieces to make reels for 

 worsted thread. . 



The Hemlock is one of the most prominent in the catalogue of 

 those herbs which compose the Pharmacopoeia of the ancient faculty 

 of Witches. Ben Jonson makes one of his hags say • 



" And I ha' been plucking (plants among) 

 Hemlock, henbane, adder's-tongue. 

 Night-shade, moon-wort, libbard's-bane ; 

 And twice by the dogs was Uke to be ta'en." 



Other poets never fail to introduce it when they give us the compo- 

 sition of a good Witches' broth*. Suffice here to remember the 

 witches in Macbeth, who throw " root of Hemlock digg'di' the dark," 

 with other items, into their seething cauldron. And hence the her- 

 balists warn us that Hemlocke is a " naughtieand dangerous herbe," 

 very " hurtful and venemous, in so much that whosoever taketh of 

 it, dieth, except he drink good old wine after it." Lyte's Herbal, 

 p. 522. 



256. ScANDix PECTEN-vENERis. WLitci)ti' ^nxctOlt . A common 

 weed in corn-fields. It is one of those plants that occasionally appear 

 in profusion on a soil turned up after a long and undisturbed burial. 

 The stem has a sweetish taste ; the fruit a more powerfully aromatic 

 one with something of the flavour of celery. Some of our country- 

 women call the long-beaked fruit the fficil'si lianxing^neclJU ; and 

 others aUam'jSmtetrtc, from their unlearned conjecture that therewith 

 our first parents stitched the primitive robe. 



257. CHiEROPHYLLUM SYLVESTRE = Anthriscus sylvestris.— 

 Under hedges and in woods, very common. June. When young 

 the stalk contains a small quantity of milky fluid ; and, when peeled, 

 is rather agreeable, having a taste similar to that of young carrots. 

 The fruit is aromatic in a shght degree. 



* " The ointment of Witches is reported to be made of the fat of chil- 

 dren dug out of their graves, the juices of smallage, wolfsbane, and cinque- 

 foil, mked with flue wheat-flour. But, I suppose, the soporiferous 

 simples are fittest for this purpose, such as henbane, hemlock, mandrake, 

 ■ moonshade, tobacco, opium, saflron, &c." Lord Bacon. Syl. Sylv. ii. p. 169. 

 Lond. 1818. 



