166 302*1'* ®«lr. 
Dyer's Weed....B elief. 
Dyer’s Weed is like a very large upright plant of 
Mignonette, to which sweet exotic it is nearly related, 
both being members of the reseda family. The Reseda 
odorata, or Mignonette, is a native of Egypt, and was 
introduced into England in 1752. The word reseda is 
from resedo, to calm, to appease. The plants were 
thought useful applications to external bruises, to ease 
pain. There are two species growing wild in England. 
Reseda lutea, or Base-rocket, likes a chalky soil, but 
R. luteola, the Dyer’s Weed, is often found on waste 
ground everywhere. It is much used by dyers, par¬ 
ticularly in France. It affords a most beautiful yellow 
dye, for cotton, woollen, mohair, silk, and linen. Blue 
cloths dipped in a decoction of it become green. The 
entire plant, when about to flower, is pulled up, and 
employed both fresh and dried. Like the Coltsfoot, ibi s 
plant is among the first which spring from the rubbish 
thrown out of coal-pits. Linnaeus observed, that the 
nodding spike of flowers always follows the sun, even 
on a cloudy day, pointing eastward in a morning, 
southward at noon, westward in the afternoon, and 
northward at night. If this be true, it may supplant 
the sunflower in the favour of sentimental florists, for 
the inconstancy of that has long been proved. Good 
old Gerarde, who evidently did his best to believe all 
things, says, that he has seen four sunflowers on one 
stem, pointing to the four cardinal points. I am wan- 
