CONVALLARIA. 195 



14. CoNVALLARiA POi,YGONATUM=Polygonatum officinale. So- 

 lomon's Seal— D. " On Kyloe rocks, a few miles south of Berwick," 

 Mr. A. Bruce. This would appear to be its most northern limit. 

 See Watson's Cyb. Brit. ii. p. 470. 



^- polygonatum is a native of the north of Europe, growing from 

 fissures in the face of its precipices : — " habitat," says Willdenow, 

 " in Europse septentrionalis prsecipitiis, rupibus." It is of frequent 

 occurrence in Sweden. The flowers are " well smeUing ;" and from 

 the root, which abounds in starch, the Satagundi make a kind of 

 bread when in lack of corn. This " root " is a horizontally creeping 

 knobby rhizoma, about the thickness of a goose-quill, and some 

 inches in length. Although the rhizomata of allied species were 

 mixed and undistinguished in trade undoubtedly, yet it was the root 

 of C. polygonatum in especial which the pharmacologist sold under 

 the name of " Radix Sigilli Salonionis," and to which such a " sin- 

 gular vertue" was ascribed in " healing up wounds, broken bones, 

 and such like." It was indeed esteemed such a good vulnerary that 

 it coped successfully with the secret unguents of the noble ladies of 

 romance, with which they were wont to cure their knights suddenly 

 of wounds that would have sent modern heroes on a twelvemonth's 

 furlough : and the said root had also the virtue of curing wounds 

 that ladies, in the good olden times, were subject, it seems, occa- 

 sionally to receive. " The root of Solomon's seale," says Gerarde, 

 " stamped while it is fresh and greene, and apphed, taketh away in 

 one night, or two at the most, any bruise, blacke or blew spots 

 gotten by falls or women's wilfulnesse, in stumbling vpon their hasty 

 husbands fists, or such like." 



The plant was first introduced into England in Gerarde's lifetime, 

 and previous to 1597. Carolus Clusius sent it from the "wooddy 

 mountaines of Leitenberg, aboue Manderstorf," to London, " to Mr. 

 Garth a worshipful gentleman, and one that greatly delighteth in 

 strange plants, who very louingly imparted the same " unto Gerarde. 

 This worthy herbalist has given a good figure of the plant under the 

 title of the "Sweet smelling Soloman's Seale." 



The first notice I find of it as indigenous to England is in John- 

 son's edition of Gerarde, published in 1633. It is therein (p. 905) 

 stated to grow "in certaine woods in Yorkshire called Clapdale 

 woods, three miles from a village named Settle." — There is no 

 mention of any authority ; nor is the plant mentioned in any work 

 of Johnson's published subsequently, although the same habitat is 

 given, in one of them, for a variety of the Primrose. 



It is probable that Johnson derived his information of the York- 

 shire habitat from Thomas Willisel, as Dr. Merrett avowedly did. 

 Willisel was a man of humble station in life, and of mean attainments 

 in botanical science ; but his innate love of plants, and of created 

 things in general, was strong and living, and led him to devote his 



1. Iris foetidissima. Pond at Anton's-hill, Dr. R. D. Thomson in Stat. 

 Ace. Bervsicks. p. 64. 



2. Convallaria majalis. Solomon's Seal. Planted occasionally in policies. 



o 2 



