86 
RURAL HOURS. 
to the common sense of the community. Why, it is one of the 
daintiest wood-flowers, with nothing in the world to do with 
chicks, or weeds, or winter. It is not the least of an evergreen, 
its leaves withering in autumn, as a matter of course, and there is 
not a chicken in the country that knows it by sight or taste. Dis- 
criminating people, when they find its elegant silvery flower grow- 
ing in the woods beside the violet, call it May-star ; and so should 
everybody who sees it. 
The cool-wort grows in patches upon many banks within the 
woods, or near them. It is a very pretty flower from its fight 
airy character, and the country people employ its broad, violet- 
shaped leaves for healing purposes. They lay them, freshly 
gathered, on scalds and burns, and, like all domestic receipts of 
the sort, they never fail of course, but " work like a charm ;" 
that is to say, as charms worked some hundred years ago. It is 
the leaves only that are used in this way, and we have seen per- 
sons who professed to have been much benefited by them. 
The slender mitella, or fringe-cup, or false sanicle — one does 
not like a false name for a flower — hangs its tiny white cups at 
intervals on a tall, slender, two-leaved stalk ; a pretty, unpretend- 
ing little thing, which scatters its black seeds very early in the 
season. It is one of the plants we have in common with Northern 
Asia. 
As for the May-wings,* or " gay- wings," they are in truth one of 
the gayest little blossoms we have ; growing low as they do, and 
many of their winged flowers together, you might fancy them 
so many warm lilac, or deep rose-colored butterflies resting on 
* Polygalia Pancifolia. 
