38 
THE JOUItNAL OF BOTANY 
The most superficial observation suffices to show that the water 
in the cups is never pure, except when quite freshly accumulated : 
it is always of a dirty coffee-colour, of an oily consistency, and smells 
very offensively as a result of the putrefaction of the bodies of the 
many small creatures which have crawled or fallen into it and been 
drowned. How offensively the liquor smells will be realized fully 
only by one who, after having gathered some of it in order to examine 
the creatures contained in it, has been obliged to deodorize his fingers. 
In short, the presence of many small putrefying creatures in the 
liquor in the cups is practically invariable—as much a matter of 
course as the presence of water in the cups. 
It has been stated that in early times this foul stinking liquor 
was collected and used as a cosmetic, as a cure for inflamed eyes, and 
otherwise. This is probable enough; for our ancestors had a strong 
belief in nasty medicines : Hay himself wrote of the Teasel (Cat. 
Plant. Oantabr. p. 45 : 1660) : “Aqua pluvia in alis foliorum hujusce 
plant* stagnans commendatur ad verrucas abigendas, si manus ea 
aliquoties laventur. Atque bine fortasse Labri Veneris nomen 
obtinuit.” It was probably the use anciently of this foul liquor as 
a cosmetic which gained for the plant the name “Venus’s Hath.” 
Pliny wrote of the Teasel as Lab rum Venereum (Nat. Hist. bk. xxv. 
ch. 108). 
Whether or not this use of the fetid liquor found in the cups of 
the Teasel survives in England, both Boyer and Barthelemy state that 
the country people of Prance, especially those of the centre and east, 
still attribute marvellous curative properties to it, regarding it as 
a cure for sore eyes and eruptions on the face: hence the}" speak 
of the Teasel cup as “ une fontaine cle Venus.” 
It has also been suggested that, during July, a thirsty traveller 
might refresh himself from the water in the cups of the Teasel; but 
one might almost as well drink crude sewage. As Parkinson 
remarked (Theatr. Bot. p. 985: 1G40), sensibly enough (alluding to 
a statement by earlier writers who had spoken of the liquor as thirst¬ 
quenching) :—“ The water conteined in these leaves groweth bitter by 
standing in them and [is], therefore, not fit to quench but to encrease 
thirst rather.” Nevertheless, the water, when quite freshly-caught, 
is clear, limpid, and not altogether undrinkable. At this stage, 
says Barthelemy (op. cit. p. GOO), chemical analysis shows no im¬ 
purities except traces of bicarbonates and of soil blown in by the 
wind. Mr. A. J. Wilmott informs me that years ago, when he was 
a boy, being in a large wood on a hot day and very thirsty, he 
* actually drank from the cups of some teasels (which were quite full, 
as a result of recent heavy rain) and was refreshed. He drank, 
however, only the upper and sweeter portion of the liquor. Moreover, 
one of the names by which, according to Barthelemy, French country 
people speak of the Teasel cup—namely, “cabaret des oiseaux”— 
implies their belief that birds are accustomed to drink therefrom. 
The belief that the water was drinkable seems to have been fairly 
general; thus the 'younger Withering, in his (the seventh) edition of 
his father’s Arrangement of British Plants (ii. 216 : 1830), savs 
that in desert countries the traveller “ would often exchange the 
