IVY-LEAVED TOADFLAX. 47 



is no possibility of confusing it. We have already figured 

 the common toadflax or L. vulgaris. How the present 

 plant got introduced into Britain can now only be con- 

 jectured, but we know that during the Middle Ages many 

 foreign plants were introduced into England on account 

 of either their beauty or their medicinal value. In such 

 books as that of Gerarde we read repeatedly of plants being 

 brought from abroad for the herb-garden of the author by 

 his friends. The plant was by the old herbalist credited 

 with certain virtues, and from its situation by the water- 

 side it was naturally assumed to be " cooling." In 

 Southern Europe it is eaten as a salad, as it tastes very 

 like cress, and it is, like our water-cress and other salad 

 plants, held to be an anti-scorbutic. The plant has rather 

 a strong smell, which is by some considered disagreeable. 



We now proceed to consider the plant a little more in 

 detail ; and, beginning with the root, we find how admi- 

 rably its fibrous nature adapts it for searching out and 

 retaining its hold of the cracks and crevices into which it 

 inserts itself, and from which it can scarcely be eradicated. 

 Its long, trailing stems often root, too, at their lower joints, 

 and so give additional points of attachment. The stalks 

 are numerous and very slender, hanging downwards from 

 the point of attachment to the plant, and though appa- 

 rently very fragile, are somewhat stringy and tough, and 

 well able to bear the buffeting which their breezy situation 

 often exposes them to. These stems are very long in 

 proportion to their thickness, and, except in the youngest 

 shoots, purplish in colour. The leaves are very ivy-like in 

 form, and are cut up into five prominent lobes or divisions : 

 they are somewhat thick or fleshy in texture, and smooth to 

 the touch. The stems on which they are borne are long 



