A SELENIUM. 
Others are bipinnate, as is the case with our Black Maidenhair Spleenwort ( Asplenium Adiantum- 
nigrum), or tripinnate. In texture, too, there is great variety ; some species are membranous 
others (and those the most numerous) are stout and herbaceous, while others again are tough 
and leathery. We shall take an opportunity of referring more at length to some of the foreign 
Spleenworts when describing the European species to which they are most nearly allied. 
The name Asplenium dates back to Dioscorides, who bestowed it upon the Scale Fern or 
Rusty-back ( Ceterach officinaruni) — which is still placed in the genus Asplenium by some writers 
on ferns, in allusion to its use as a remedy in diseases of the spleen ; so that the English 
name Spleenwort is only an adaptation of the Latin. We shall have to recur to it again 
as applied to the Scale Fern, when we come to speak of that plant. The names of very 
many plants, indeed, both Latin and vernacular, have been given to them in consequence 
of the real or supposed influence possessed by them over certain parts of the body, or ia 
the case of certain disorders. Were this a suitable opportunity, much might be said in 
illustration of this statement. The “doctrine of signatures” suggested a vast number of names( 
This was thus quaintly explained, more than two hundred years ago, by William Coles, in his 
“Art of Simpling ” (1656): — “Though Sin and Satan have plunged mankinde into an ocean of 
infirmities, yet the mercy of God, which is over all His works, maketh grasse to grow upon 
the mountains and herbes for the use of men, and hath not only stamped upon them a distinct 
forme, but also given them particular signatures, whereby a man may read, even in legible 
characters, the use of them.” These characters, it must be confessed, are sometimes hardly 
as “ legible ” as Coles seems to think. For instance, it is not until we see the yellow 
under-bark of the Barberry ( Berbcris vulgaris ) that we understand how the “ doctrine of 
signatures ” can account for its use in cases of jaundice ; but when this is known, it is easily 
understood that a yellow-wooded tree would naturally suggest itself as a remedy for that 
disease. Our garden Jerusalem Cowslip ( Pulmonaria officinalis) owes its common English 
name, Lungwort, as well as its Latin generic equivalent, to" the spotting of the 
leaves, which was considered to indicate that they would be useful in diseases of the lungs. 
The Viper’s Bugloss ( Echium vulgar e), according to Lyte’s “Niewe Herball ” (1578), “is very 
good against the bitings of serpents and vipers, and his seede is like the head of a viper,” 
hence the name, both Latin and English, the former being an adaptation of echi , the Greek 
word for a viper. The Wood Sanicle ( Sanicula europcea) took its name from its healing 
properties, real or supposed ; as also did the genus Salvia (from salvo , I heal). The Colts- 
foot is called in Latin Tussilago, from the word tussis, a cough ; it is still employed as a 
remedy against coughs. We might adduce many more instances of this method of naming 
but those already cited are sufficient to show how many of the plant-names still in use have 
their origin in some allusion to the real or imaginary “virtues” which were possessed by the 
species to which they belong. The earlier Latin names of plants, by which they were 
referred to in the old herbals before Linnaeus reduced scientific nomenclature to a definite 
system, were still more frequently framed in allusion to some healing property of the species.- 
Thus, the Comfrey, which now bears the name Symphytum (from the Greek symphyo , I make," 
to grow together), was formerly known as Confirma , in allusion to that property of con- 
solidating of which we had occasion to speak in our Introduction (p. xxvi).* The meaning 
* The subject of the origin and history of plant-names is a very interesting one ; for Latin names, Thcis’ 
“ Dictionnaire de Botanique ” and (for those of English plants) Alcock’s “Botanical Names for English 
Readers,” should be consulted ; for English names, Dr. Alexander Priors “ Popular Names of British Plants,” 
Britten and Holland’s “ Dictionary of English Plant-Names,” published by the English Dialect Society, and 
Professor Earle’s “ English Plant-names from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century.” 
