808 
HABITS AND LATIN NAMES OF BRITISH PLANTS. 
covered with sand and rendered useless, which might have been prevented by 
sowing the seeds of this plant. The Dutch have profited by the knowledge of 
this fact. Queen Elizabeth on this account forbade the extirpation of it. It is 
planted on some of the flat coasts of Norfolk to repel the sea, and is also suitable 
to the light lands of that country. Mr. W inch remarks that this plant, together 
with a few others which seem designed by Nature to bind the loose sands 
of the sea-shore by their creeping roots, is the means of forming the low 
round-topped hills, called 44 Binks,” along a considerable part of our northern 
coast. A legislative enactment, 1742, for the preservation of this plant, extends 
generally to the north-west coast of England; but such persons as claimed pre¬ 
scriptive right of cutting it on the sea-coast of Cumberland are said to be exempt 
from its operation. The Scottish parliament likewise protected this plant, 
together with Flymus arenarius , by a penal statute. 
Anagallis. —The etymology of this word is exceedingly vague. Blanchard 
derives it from avx; and yxXXos, a capon; because it scatters fruitless seed.— 
Dioscorides from xvxyu, to draw from, because it was anciently used to draw 
thorns or other substances out of the flesh. Pliny from «»*, and yx\x, milk, 
because it has the property of coagulating milk ; or from xvx, and yxWis, a river, 
in Phrygia, upon wdiose banks it grew in abundance. Some from yxXXis, the 
Hyacinth, because it is like it in colour; and some from xyxXXu, to adorn, 
because it beautifies and adorns hedges and the banks of highways, or from 
avxysXocco, to laugh; because, by curing the spleen, it disposes persons to be cheer¬ 
ful. The flowers of this genus are elegant, scarlet, blue, or pink. 
Anagallis arvensis , Scarlet Pimpernel, Poor Man’s Weather-glass.—It closes 
on the approach of rain; and from its susceptibility has acquired the name of 
Shepherd’s or Poor Man’s Weather-glass; nor has this property escaped the 
observation of the Musce Rusticce — 
“ Clos’d is the pink-eyed Pimpernel: 
’Twill surely rain. I see, with sorrow. 
Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow.” 
“ And Pimpernel whose brilliant flow’r 
Closes against the approaching show’r 
Warning the swain to sheltering low’r 
From humid air secure.” 
The flowers in finer weather only continue open from about eight, a. m., till 
towards four, p.m. Hence distinguished by Linn^us as one of the Flores 
Solares , admissible in constituting the Horologium Florae , the 44 Herbas korarum 
indices ’ of Pliny ; that 
M Trace with mimic art the march of time.’* 
