128 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



We must remember that the day of folk- 

 lore is not past ; superstition has not given 

 place to science, and the reign of isolated ab- 

 surdities still holds sway in many minds in 

 place of law and order. It may be no worse 

 to attribute the hidden evil of the world to 

 plants possessed of Satan than to believe 

 that there is a creature with horns and a 

 cloven foot seeking for the innocent to sat- 

 isfy his capacious maw. 



Some of the most charming examples of 

 plant lore are found in that portion having 

 to do with fairies. Of course, the fairy itself 

 is a pleasing myth that will require many 

 ages to eradicate from the human mind, be- 

 cause it adds so much of innocent beauty to 

 a majority of the nursery rhymes and chil- 

 dren's tales. The whole deception of Santa 

 Claus is one born to an endless earthly life, 

 because having only a happy and healthful 

 influence upon both the old who practice it 

 and the young who are so delightfully de- 

 ceived. There is a perennial pleasure in the 

 thought that a tulip-blossom is a cradle in 

 which mother fairies lull their little ones to 

 sleep. To this day the finder of a four- 

 leaved clover is considered by many as a 

 person born to good luck — a notion that has 

 descended from an older idea, namely, that 

 the monstrous leaf was a talisman which en- 

 abled its wearer to detect the haunts of fair- 

 ies. Much of fairy lore clusters around the 

 so-called fairy rings, that is, the green circles 

 in old pastures within which the elfs were 

 supposed to dance at night by the light of 

 the moon. Modern science has extracted the 

 last breath of poetry from this common phe- 

 nomenon and left it as a dry fact in the cy- 

 clopaedias. 



Flowers play no insignificant role in love- 

 making at the present day, and no school- 

 girl's botany is complete unless she can dis- 

 course fluently upon the language of flowers. 

 Some plants are naturally symbolic of cer- 

 tain ideas. Thus, grass readily may stand 

 for usefulness and the cypress for mourning, 

 the poppy for sleep, and the trembling aspen 

 for fear. Other plants do not carry their 

 florigraphical meaning in plain sight, but 

 have acquired their adopted meaning in ways 

 that are lost in oblivion while the symbol re- 

 mains. Thus the rose was dedicated to Ve- 

 nus by the early Romans and Greeks, and 

 now stands for love, especially the deep red 



varieties. The constancy of the violet and 

 the curiosity of the sycamore are far less evi- 

 dent than the weeping nature of the droop- 

 ing willow. 



The degree of credence given by many to 

 the strange stories of fabulous plants is one 

 of constant surprise to those whose knowl- 

 edge shows up the traditions in their true 

 light. The barnacle-tree is an instance to 

 the point, and the following is a sixteenth- 

 century description of it : " There are found 

 in the north of Scotland and the isles adja- 

 cent, called Orcades, certain trees whereon do 

 grow small fishes of a white color, tending to 

 russet, wherein are contained little living 

 creatures ; which shells in time of maturity 

 do open and out of them grow those little 

 living things which, falling into the water, do 

 become fowls whom we call barnacles, in the 

 north of England brant geese, and in Lan- 

 caster tree geese ; but the others that do fall 

 upon the land perish and do come to noth- 

 ing." There is more foundation in fact for 

 this exaggeration of trees which, overhanging 

 and dipping into water at high tide, may bear 

 barnacles than in the wonder-working moon- 

 wort which would open locks, and unshoe 

 horses treading upon it — certainly a very 

 unsafe herb in the hands of unscrupulous 

 house-breakers — providing the fable were 

 true. Under the " doctrine of signatures " 

 the author brings together a large amount of 

 interesting matter illustrating the old idea 

 that each medicinal plant has some sign of 

 color, shape, etc., which indicates its healing 

 power either for the whole body or for some 

 particular organ. For example, red juice is 

 for the blood, yellow for jaundice, the liver 

 leaf — shaped like a liver — for the liver, etc. 

 This doctrine was carried to an almost amus- 

 ing excess. Thus, the shell of walnut, which 

 resembles a human skull somewhat, was used 

 for troubles of the brain. The aspen was 

 employed for palsy ; and mistletoe, a plant 

 that grows in a suspended position, was good 

 for dizziness. 



Young people even could find much 

 amusement in the chapter upon games, hav- 

 ing plant lore as the basis and often set to 

 rhyme. 



Folk-lore in medicine is avast subject re- 

 ceiving its full measure of treatment. Strange 

 are many of the rhymes in this section of the 

 subject. A single couplet is here indulged in : 



