CXIV.— THE DROPWORT. 
Spiraa Filipemiula Linne. 
T he likenesses and unlikenesses of the Meadow-sweet and the Dropwort 
afford a good example of two species alike obviously belonging to one genus 
and yet distinctly separated from one another. 
The Dropwort {Stphcea Filipendula Linn6) is, in general, as characteristic of dry 
upland pastures as the Meadow-sweet is of moist lowland situations. Being also 
apparently more particular as to soil than its congener, the Dropwort is less frequent. 
We should have been inclined to describe it as belonging exclusively to chalk and 
limestone pastures, had it not been for the earliest record of the species as a British 
plant and its present occurrence in Middlesex. At first reading, William Turner’s 
mention of the plant in 1 548 might well be taken to refer to one of the 
Umbelliferous Water-Dropworts for which we now employ the Latin name CEnanthe. 
“ CEnanthe,” he writes, “is called boeth of the Herbaries and of al our countrey men Filipendula, in duch 
Rotensteynbrech . . . Filipendula groweth in great plentie beside Syon & Shene in the middowes.” 
It is, however, quite certain that the plant here referred to is Spiraea Filipendula. 
Lobel figured it under the name CEnanthe Filipendula ; and, although Parkinson’s 
figures and description are somewhat confused, they also help in the identification. 
He speaks of a Filipendula that 
“shooteth forth divers long winged leaves, that is, many small leaves, some bigger an.d some lesser, set on each side of a middle 
ribbe, and each of them dented about the edges, somewhat rese.nbling Burnet and wild Tansy, or rather Agrimony, or 
betweene them all . . . the roote consisteth of many small blacke tuberous peeces, fastened together by many sm ill long 
blackish strings, which runne from one unto another.” 
Though, however, he calls this the Syon plant, he adds that it has “ many 
white sweete smelling flowers,” whilst the flowers of Spir^a Filipendula are scentless ; 
and he speaks of another species as having flowers “ of a white enclining to a 
purple,” which phrase might well be applied to the opening buds of the Dropwort. 
He adds, however, 
“ This is taken by many learned writers, and herbarists in these dayes, to be the *Oe»/c£t' 07 ?, Oenanthe of Dioscorides 
. . . It is called of all moderne writers Filipendula^ quod numtrosi illi in radice bulbilliy quasi ex Jilo pendere njideantur* . . , 
the Italians and Spaniards call it Filipend da^ . . . the Germanes Rotten Steinbrechy that is, red breakestone, from whence came 
the Latine name among them Saxifraga rubra, red Saxifrage ; as also ^i/d Garb, that is Millefolium syl-vestre** 
Not many years ago the plant was still abundant in the low-lying meadows 
near the Thames in the neighbourhood of Richmond, which are neither dry nor 
calcareous ; and Messrs. Trimen and Dyer in their “ Flora of Middlesex ” speak of 
the distribution of the species within that county as limited to the immediate 
neighbourhood of the Thames. Probably the rhizomes and tubercles, which retain 
their vitality under very adverse circumstances, have been carried down by the 
river from its upper reaches where it often flows at the foot of steep chalk slopes 
• “ On account of the numerous bulbils on the root which appear as if hanging by a thread." 
