HERBS OF THE SEA 



137 



JVIany are the legends woven about this plant. 

 To give one of them : The peasants of the Isle of 

 Man declare that if after sunset on St. John's Eve 

 you happen to step on the plant, a fairy horse 

 arises out of the ground, which will carry you 

 gloriously all the night, to leave you, wherever 

 you may happen to be, when the first ray of the 

 rising sun flies over the w^orld. In English villages 

 a salve made of the golden flowers is still much 

 used and valued. We grow a prettier kind of 

 St. John's Wort than the common one. It is 

 Hypericum uralum. 



One Herb of Healing grows wild with us that 

 might not flourish so well inland ; it is the Sea 

 Tree-Mallow, a tall plant, growing quite five or six 

 feet high. The large gTeen leaves are so exquisitely 

 soft that anyone who touches them in the dark 

 would think that they were velvet ; they are used 

 for sprains, steeped in hot water and laid on the 

 injured part. Another Herb of the sea is the 

 Scurvy-grass, Cochlearia officinalis^ which before our 

 sailors took to Lime-juice was such a blessing to 

 them. Our great navigators have borne testimony 

 to its unfailing use in scurvy. However far from 

 the sea-coast this plant is found, its taste is always 

 salt ; it is supposed to be the famous Herba 



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