108 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



low-growing herbage. The pennies were the capsules, 

 flattened, and yet fairly circular in outline; the resemblance 

 to money is not very great certainly, but in the "good old 

 times " men do not appear to have been very exacting on 

 such points. The generic name, Rhinanthm, is derived 

 from the two Greek words signifying nose and flower, the 

 projecting beak of the upper portion of the corolla being the 

 part that suggested the name, and it is only fair to say that 

 in some other plants in the genus the resemblance is more 

 pronounced. The specific name, Crista-galli, means the 

 crest or comb of a cock, because, according to Pliny, it has 

 numerous leaves, resembling a cock's comb. Others prefer 

 to see in the notched calyx a resemblance which they deny 

 to the serrated leaves. In France it is the Crete-de-coq. 

 Parkinson, writing in 1640, calls it the yellow rattle or 

 coxcombe, and distinctly says that the deeply-dented edges 

 of the leaves "resemble therein the crest or combe of a 

 cocke ; " and yet farther on he says that some call it 

 gallinacea, " because the floweres, as some think, stand like 

 a cocke's combe at the toppes of the stalkes." 



