20 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



given was applied by them, not, indeed, to the wallflower, but 

 to a somewhat similar plant, bearing red and richly-scented 

 flowers. The Greek antkos was added to this, to make it 

 harmonise in appearance and sound with the other botanical 

 names springing chiefly from Greek and Latin sources. We 

 are asked further to believe that the early writers, re- 

 senting, as they well might do, this barbarous admixture of 

 two languages in the one word, found in the Greek word 

 cheir, " the hand," something very equivalent in sound to 

 the Arabic, and so " kheyry-anthos }> grew into ' ' cheir- 

 anthos." 



The wallflower does not seem to have attracted the 

 notice of the earlier herbalists so much as many other 

 equally common flowers did, though we should have imagined 

 that in their quaint hunting after analogies the plant 

 which beautified the ruin and adorned the ravages of time 

 would have been held fit application for the decaying 

 human frame. We may see something of this, perhaps, 

 in Gerarde's suggestion that "the oyle of wallflowers is 

 good to be used to annoint a paralyticke." According to 

 another old author, " it stayeth inflammations and swell- 

 ings, and comforteth and strengtheneth any weak part.'"'' 



