CHAPTER VIII 



A BUNDLE OF BITTER HERBS 



' Some Camomile doth not amiss, 

 With Savory and some Tansey.^ 



*Many Herbes and flowers that have small beautie or savour 

 to commend them have much more good use and vertue."* 



Wormwood, Artemisia absinthium; Rue, Rut a 

 graveolens ; Camomile, Anthemis nobilis ; Hore- 

 hound, Marrubium vulgare ; and Tansy, Tanacetum 

 vulgare — all these are bitter Herbs indeed, but no 

 Herb-garden would be complete without them : 

 great is their virtue. 



Wormwood, with the exception of Rue, is the 

 bitterest Herb known ; but everyone must look 

 on it with interest, if only because of its respon- 

 sibility for the world-famous absinthe. In France 

 whole fields of it are grown for no other object 

 than the making of this terrible cordial, or poison 

 — which should we call it? The plant is not 



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