THE TORMENTIL— continued. 
dysentery. Parkinson begins a long enumeration of the plant’s many “ vertues,” by 
saying that it is 
“most excellent to stay all kindes of fluxes of bloud or humors, in man or woman, whether at the nose, mouth, belly, or any 
wound in the veines, or anywhere else” ; 
and Linn6 frankly admits that its colour is its recommendation, writing “Tormentilla 
in dysenteria quod rubra est.” 
The rhizome is stated to contain 17 per cent, of tannic acid, a higher percentage 
than Oak bark ; and Lightfoot says that it was largely used in tanning in the 
Hebrides in the eighteenth century ; whilst in the “ Flora of Shetland,” published 
in 1845, the year of his death, Thomas Edmonston (who, at the age of twenty, was 
accidentally shot, on the shores of Peru) writes that, under the name of Earth hark^ 
it was then so employed in his native islands. It is used in Lapland as a red dye 
for skins ; and, as undoubtedly very astringent, it is still sometimes employed in 
veterinary medicine. 
The annual aerial stems are slender, erect, and branched, seldom rooting at their 
nodes, and clothed with curly hairs : the long-stalked radical leaves are quinate, their 
lobes being from three- to four-toothed at the top ; whilst the cauline leaves are 
sub-sessile and ternate. 
The flowers are said to produce nectar in abundance in Norway, and to be there 
visited by humble-bees ; whilst farther south it does not produce the nectar and is 
not so visited. As the flowers are homogamous they may often be self-pollinated ; 
but that they are also insect-pollinated may be inferred from the occurrence of 
several apparent hybrids with closely allied species. 
Although, perhaps, rejoicing most in the warm, sunny, open spaces on a sandy 
heath, the species does not seem to be very particular as to soil and situation, its 
cheerful little blossoms occurring commonly in shady woods and its rhizomes 
managing to hold their own amid dense pasture grasses. From June to September 
it contributes by its flowers to the gaiety of the country-side. 
