2i6 the associations OF FLOWERS 
“ Hypericum was there, the herb of war, 
Pierced through with wounds, and marked with 
many a scar.” 
1 he healing efficacy which once made it celebrated by the 
herbalist and the poet, is not now thought very great; 
though the juice of the plant is still, in country places, 
applied to bruises, and would perhaps be more frequently 
used, but that healing applications may, in modern times, 
be procured at little expense from the apothecary. 
The names of many common plants remind us of the 
value once attached to their restoring virtues. Thus, the 
Druids called the mistletoe all-heal;” and the little wood 
loose-strife, a flower very similar to the scarlet pimpernel, 
only that its colour is yellow, was called, besides its com- 
mon name of herb twopence, “ herbe aux cent maladies.” 
“He who hath sanicle needeth no surgeon,” says an old 
writer ; yet its power of “ making whole and sound all 
inward wounds and outward hurts ” seems to have passed 
away with the proverb respecting it. The common yarrow 
is a plant to be found in almost every meadow, with a 
bunch of white flowers, sometimes tinged with pink, and 
leaves cut into many divisions; and is often called old 
man’s pepper, or hundred leaves. It was once termed 
Knyghten milfoil, or Soldier’s woundwort, because it was 
thought to cure the wounds inflicted by a spear. 
Though less acquainted with the properties of plants 
than modern botanists, they who gave their familiar names 
to some of our wild-flowers seem to have loved them well, 
and associated a number of pleasing and pastoral ideas 
with them. Thus, there is the heart’s-ease, the traveller’s 
joy, or virgin bower, by which the clematis is called; the 
wayfaring tree, which is the old name for the guelder 
rose ; the waybread, which designated the plantain that 
grows by the way-side, and which we often gather for 
canaries. Then, there is the pretty lily of the vale, or 
May lily, as it used more frequently to be called, and 
both of which names are elegant and expressive ; and the 
shepherd’s needle, a little white-flowered plant, with long 
seed-vessels like sharp-pointed needles ; and the shep- 
herd’s purse, with its heart-shaped pouches, often called, 
too, bv children, pickpocket. There is the wake-robin, 
