THE DROPWORT— continued. 
on which this plant would be in its more natural home, so that it has come about 
that Turner’s first recorded locality is an altogether exceptional one. 
It is probably an example of how Old Latin names, often of monastic 
introduction, have been adopted merely phonetically into colloquial speech 
that the name Filly^ndillan is recorded by Messrs. Britten and Holland as in use 
in County Clare. 
The plant has a short brownish rhizome ; and the tubercles are generally 
darker, sometimes black and fusiform ; but we have often found them united into 
palmate bifurcating or trifurcating masses. They are also sometimes united several 
together end to end in a necklace-like or moniliform manner. Internally they are 
white and farinaceous ; and they are said by Linnaeus to “ afford no despicable 
substitute for bread ” ; but the whole plant is decidedly astringent and had formerly 
very many medicinal virtues ascribed to it. 
The leaves are almost entirely radical, spreading in a rosette adpressed to the 
earth, or ascending. They are dark green and glabrous, and are very prettily divided 
in an interruptedly pinnate manner into a great number of small sessile leaflets 
deeply cut and serrated. There are a pair of narrow, uncut stipules to the root- 
leaves ; but those of the few cauline leaves are toothed. 
The aerial stem is smooth, round, and erect, rising a foot or eighteen inches, 
and often deeply tinged with crimson, the same deep red extending to the outside 
of the opening flower-buds. The branching of the many-flowered inflorescence 
is similar to that of the Meadow-sweet and is technically known as an anthela, the 
first-formed branches ending in flowers and then producing lateral shoots which 
overtop them. 
The flower does not secrete honey ; and it is somewhat remarkable that the 
fragrant principle coumarin so abundant in the Meadow-sweet, and so simple in 
chemical constitution that it has originated independently in many other plants of 
different Families, from the Tonka bean {Coumarouna odorata Aublet) to various 
Orchids and the Sweet-scented Vernal Grass {Anthoxanthum odoratum Linne), does 
not occur in this species. 
The carpels are more numerous than in the Meadow-sweet, varying from six 
to twelve in number. They are straight and have a downy surface and terminate 
in short recurved styles and large blunt stigmas. 
There is a pretty double variety in gardens which is useful for bouquets both 
in its foliage and in its lasting blossoms. In Northamptonshire it is known as 
Lady's Ruffles. It is very hardy and is readily increased by division. 
