56 
The hish Nahi^alist. 
March, 
In Clare Island, in 1910, I made the acquaintance of a 
He- and She-Arctium, or Burdock, a C|iAt)^n irifiexinn 
and a CpA-o^n binnex^n. But these two sexes were not 
assigned to plants of different genera, as in the case of the 
"bAlc-Aife^n, but to different states of the same plant, the 
CtiA-o^n pi^e^nn being the fruiting plant, the C. binne^n the 
plant with large base-leaves before the fruiting stem has 
shot up. There was a cure in this plant, but it was only 
found in the C|\^'o^n binnex^n. Next year, on the opposite 
mainland, at Carrowmore and Bunowen, I again came on 
the He- and She-Crawdhawn, and farther on along the 
coast, at Roonah, encountered a He- and She-Nyanthoge, 
or Nettle, a tle^ncos ptAe^nn and a tl. binneAn. I failed to 
get specimens of the two Nyanthoges, but was told that 
the She-Nyanthoge was a kind plant, while the He was a 
coarse, stinging one. 
All endeavours to arrive at any fixed principle under- 
lying this sexual system are as fruitless as endeavours have 
hitherto been to find an absolute standard of human con- 
duct. This much alone is certain, that in the folk botany 
of Ireland a male and female element is recognised, as in all 
systems of morality there is a recognition of a right and 
wrong. This folk idea of a sexual system in plants is 
obviously no echo of modern scientific doctrine. It is, no 
doubt, the outcome of a primitive analogical instinct which 
has urged man in all ages to expect to find and to seek 
for in the plant world distinctions parallel to those which 
daily impress themselves upon him in the animal world. 
The working of this instinct may be traced far back in 
human history ; and we still have with us a few survivals 
in such names as Male Pimpernel and Male Fern. For us, 
however, these are but petrifactions of thought and language. 
The spirit is gone from them, while the names given by the 
Gaelic peasant to his male and female plants are the 
expression of a living belief. 
The Elder, or Bore Tree. — In Gaelic Ireland this is 
usually known as the^'Trom or Tromaun, but in some parts 
of the west and in the north the name common in the Scotch 
lowlands and in the northern counties of England, variously 
