SHEPHERD’S NEEDLE— continued. 
somewhat the earlier. The most striking feature, however, in all the species is the 
relatively enormous elongation of the inferior ovary, and especially of its “ beak,” 
after fertilisation, the latter being five or more times as long as the ovary itself. 
The fruit is sub-cylindric and rough with bristles : each of its carpels has five blunt 
primary ridges : the oil-vittae are hardly discernible ; and the seeds are deeply 
furrowed on the side nearest the commissure. 
Our British species Scandix Pecten-Veneris Linn£, which may well, as Hewett 
Watson thought it, be a colonist, introduced originally with seed corn, is a small 
plant, seldom exceeding a foot in height and branching freely from the tap-root. 
The whole plant is slightly downy with spreading hairs, but its leaves are a bright 
green. Its umbels are both terminal and lateral, so that they often appear 
in pairs ; but the ultimate umbels bear comparatively few flowers. It is very 
remarkable that the involucel before the pollination of the flowers has its leaves 
undivided, but immediately one flower is pollinated these leaves enlarge considerably 
and become notched. After fertilisation also the whole ovary of each flower 
enlarges, its upper portion or “ beak ” elongating rapidly to two or three inches, 
often carrying up with it the yet unwithered petals. When ripe the two halves of 
the fruit split apart with a violent jerk. 
It is not surprising that early botanical writers should have recognised the 
striking resemblance of this plant, with its pinnate leaves and beaked fruits, to the 
Stork’s-bill ( Erodium ), from which, however, it differs fundamentally in the beak 
being produced below, not within, the flower. 
# Matthiolus called the plant Pecten-Veneris , and Gerard, translating the name as 
Venus's Comb , speaks of its 
“long seedes, very like unto pack-needles, orderlie set one by another like the great teeth of a combe.’’ 
Though the names Shepherd's Bodkin and Deil's Elshin , i.e. Devil’s Awl, do 
occur, the great majority of the plant’s appellations contain the word Needle , 
country taste differing as to whether the needle belongs to Adam, Venus, Puck, Our 
Lady, the Devil, a Shepherd, a Tailor, an Old Woman, a Beggar, or a Crow. The 
name Stikpile, also applied to Erodium , is probably very ancient ; and Clock-needle , 
current in the south of Buckinghamshire, may be keck-lock, or leac, needle , i.e. the 
needle plant with a hollow stem, from the Old English leac , a plant. Shepherd's 
Needle is represented in the French Aiguille du berger ; but it may be doubted 
whether the names Venus's Comb or Lady's Comb have much bond fide currency as 
folk-names. Unlike many of Gerard’s happy coinages, they have failed to catch the 
public fancy, in spite of the fact that the former is a literal translation of the specific 
name universally adopted by botanists from the time of Linnaeus. 
