HABITS AND LATIN NAMES OF BRITISH PLANTS. 
19 
Oat-grass requires as much fallowing as the Common Couch. Wherever it 
prevails, as in the North of England and East Lothian, it should be carefully 
rooted out, even by paring, and burning in clayey arable soils; for, being strong 
and cumbersome, it is capable of contending with any crop. It appears that if 
this Grass be entitled to any place in permanent pasture, it should be a very 
limited proportion. The whole plant is often affected by the disease termed 
“ rust.” Nevertheless, the animated description of Miss Kent confers no incon¬ 
siderable degree of interest even on this plant. “ I have seen it,” observes that 
elegant writer, a six feet high, with leaves two feet long, and more than one inch 
wide ; with its panicle of flowers gently drooping to one side, at least one foot 
six inches in length, and so finely polished, that, but for their green colour, we 
might think it was composed of silver Oats. Yet it is not green, neither is it 
white, nor gold colour, nor purple, but it is a union of all these : it is the offspring 
of silver and of gold, of the amethyst and the emerald. It is, indeed, very 
variable; but, in the full pride of its beauty, this Grass is truly magnificent. 
The light purple pyramids that quiver in every field and meadow, must be well 
known to every reader. In fine, the student who has time to investigate their 
beauties, will find the family of Grasses peculiarly interesting, and much more 
various and beautiful than from the apparent homeliness of many they might be 
supposed to be.” 
Artemisia. — Apr^ta-ix, from a queen of that name, who first used it; or from 
A greets , a name of Diana. 
Artemisia absinthium. Common Wormwood.—This plant is a powerful bitter, 
much extolled by Haller, on various authorities, as a stomachic, and recom¬ 
mended by him for keeping off fits of the gout, for which it is said to have served 
the Emperor Charles V. The plant is thought to drive away insects from 
clothes and furniture, for which purpose it is often laid in drawers and chests 
in the country. The vegetable alkali of the shops has been usually procured from 
this herb, and called “ Salt of Wormwood,” though retaining none of its peculiar 
qualities. It gives a bitterness to the flesh of Sheep that eat it. Horses and 
Goats dislike it; Cows and Swine refuse it. Lima Absinthii and the rare and 
singularly-elegant Plum-moth, Pteropkorus spilodactylus , Curt., pi. 161, are 
found upon it. Turkeys are fond of it. This is one of those domestic plants 
which, associated with Mallow, Mugwort, Hemlock, Docks, &c., would seem to 
follow the footsteps of Man, thriving amidst dust and rubbish, and to be found 
wherever a few miserable hovels are erected. Ramond and De Candolle 
observed several of these species among the ruins of cottages where shepherds had 
once lived, high on the Pyrenees; and some years since I remarked, says Mr. 
Winch, the same circumstance in the Highlands of Scotland. “ The constant 
appearance of these weeds about towns and villages is a curious and inexplicable 
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