Mr. Bartram told me another use of this plant. A decoction of the flowers and stalks is used to bathe any pained or bruised part, or it is rubbed with the plant itself tied up in a bag."

31. GNAPHÁLIUM (Cudweed).

1. G. luteo-álbum (Jersey Cudweed).—Stems simple, branched from the base; leaves somewhat clasping, narrow, waved, woolly on both sides, lower ones blunt; heads in crowded leafy corymbs; root annual. This species is found not only in Jersey, but, though rarely, in some places in this kingdom, as near Shelford, in Cambridgeshire. It has in July and August yellowish and conspicuous flowers, tinged with red. The stem is from three to twelve inches high, prostrate below, and woolly.

2. G. sylvaticum (Highland Cudweed).-Stem simple, nearly erect, downy; heads axillary, in a leafy spike; leaves narrow, lanceolate and downy; root perennial. In one variety of this species the leaves are nearly smooth above, and the spikes are interrupted; in another, the leaves are lanceolate and woolly on both sides. The latter form is rare, and is found chiefly on mountains; the former is a very common plant in Scottish groves and thickets, and, notwithstanding its specific distinction, is not confined to the Highlands. It has spikes of yellow flowers from July to September, the little blossoms being almost hidden by the cottony leaves growing among them. Its height is from three inches to a foot or a foot and a half, and the scales of the involucre are oblong, with a broad brown border. The name of Gnaphalium, by which Dioscorides described a plant with soft white leaves that served the purpose of cotton, and which may possibly have been identical with some plant of this genus, is, like the old English names of Dwarf-cotton and Cotton-weed, by no means inappropriate. The French term the Cudweed Gnaphale; the Germans, Ruhrpflanze; the Dutch, Droogbloeme; the Italians and Spaniards, Gnafalio. The Cudweeds, as well as the plants of the genus Antennaria, are included in the name of Everlasting, because of the durable nature of the chaffy scales of their flowers. Pliny says that the Cudweed was called Chamazelon, signifying low-ground cotton; and that it was sometimes named Albinum, from the whiteness of its leaves and stalks. The cotton picked from the foliage was used by the ancients instead of wool, for filling couches and mattresses. The plant sometimes grown in our greenhouses, and called Gnaphálium orientale, is a native of Africa. Our gardeners term it Everlasting Love, and it is La fleur immortelle of the French. None who have ever visited Père la Chaise can have failed to observe the wreaths sold at the entrance of the cemetery, for visitors to place on the tombs of those whom they have loved and honoured in life, or whose names are dear because associated with history, poetry, or science. Not a tomb of any note is there unadorned; and some whose names were unknown beyond the little circle of love which their virtues had drawn around them, still live in loving memories, and have the yellow wreaths lying in numbers on the spot where their remains are entombed. Many graves are almost covered with the garlands of Immortelles; and while the fadeless flower may serve as an emblem of love which is not to fade, so, too, the flowers planted on the sod of the "early lost and long deplored" may remind the thoughtful of the perishing nature of youth and beauty, while their renewed bloom may suggest the idea of the resurrection of those loved remains. Such emblems are needed in the cemetery of Père la Chaise; for while the monuments are inscribed with touching laments for the departed, there are few words traced there which point hopefully to the hour of meeting in heaven, which make even the faintest allusion to the rising again of the perishing body. It is thought by many writers that some species of

Gnaphalium were used by the ancients among the flowers with which they decked the images of their gods; and it is not unlikely that the Everlastings were also placed about the tombs, though we know that purple and white flowers were anciently believed to be most acceptable to the dead. In Spain and Portugal, these Immortelles are still used to decorate altars and images; but neither there nor in France, nor in the bouquet which often decks the English mantelpiece, are they left to their own natural beauty-the pale yellow flowers being often stained with green, black, or orange colour, and thus becoming strangely artificial in their appearance. In France many families are supported by staining these flowers, and making them up into garlands and crosses.

It is not known at what period this African Cudweed first appeared in England. Gerarde says that it was brought hither in a dried state in his day; and it appears from Parkinson, that it was well known in England about twenty years after the publication of Gerarde's celebrated Herbal. Gerarde calls it Golden Motherwoort, and says of the flowers that "they are on the top of a long stalke, joyned together in tufts of a yellow colour, glittering like golde, in forme resembling the scalie flowers of tansie." He says that "being gathered before they be ripe, they remaine beautiful a long time, as myselfe did see in the handes of Master Wade, one of the Clerkes of hir Majestie's Counsell, which was sent him among other things from Padua, in Italie.”

3. G. uliginosum (Marsh Cudweed).-Stem spreading, much branched, woolly; leaves narrow, lanceolate, and downy; heads in dense tufts, which are shorter than the leaves; root annual. This is a common species, inhabiting sandy places, or spots where water has stood. It is a small plant, rarely more than three or four inches high, its stem and foliage white with cottony down. In August and September the heads of flowers grow two or three together, among the crowded leaves: their scales are glossy and chaffy, and yellowish brown.

4. G. supínum (Dwarf Cudweed).-Stem prostrate, branching only from the base; flowering stems bearing from one to five flowers; leaves narrow and tufted; root perennial. There are two varieties of this plant, in one of which the heads are stalked and rather distant; in the other, they are sessile and close together. The species is abundant on Highland mountains, and is usually about two or three inches high, its flowering stems almost bare of leaves. The yellowish flowers appear in July and August.

32. FILÁGO (Filago).

1. F. Gállica (Narrow-leaved Filago).-Stem erect, forked; leaves narrow and pointed; heads crowded in axillary and terminal tufts, which are shorter than the leaves; involucres broad at the base, the outer scales cottony, with bluntish, smooth points; root annual. This plant, which is found, though very rarely, on sandy and gravelly fields, has small oblong heads of flowers in leafy clusters, on a slender leafy stem about six inches high. The leaves, which narrow upwards from the base, are upright, and finally turn back. The florets are yellowish. The plant has been found at Berechurch, in Essex, at one or two places in Kent, and a few other spots of this kingdom.

2. F. mínima (Least Filago).-Stem erect, with forked branches; leaves narrow, lanceolate and pointed, flat, closely pressed; heads conical, in lateral and terminal clusters, longer than the leaves; scales cottony, smooth, and slightly blunt at the point; root annual. This is a common species of dry and gravelly places, perhaps not truly distinct from the preceding. The yellowish heads of flowers, which appear from June to September, are very small, and the whole

plant is of a greyish colour, and enveloped in cottony down. Its stem is slender, and from two to six inches high.

3. F. Germánica (Common Filago).—Stem erect, usually many-flowered at the summit; leaves downy; heads terminal, and in the axils of the branches, somewhat globose; scales of the involucre cottony, with smooth points; root annual. There are several varieties of this plant. One has the heads scarcely angled, the scales of the involucre of yellowish white, and the leaves oblong or lanceolate. Another has the heads larger, five-angled, the scales purplish towards the tip, the leaves lanceolate, tipped with a spine, grass-green but with a yellowish down: this is called by some writers F. apiculata. Another form, with the heads prominently five-angled, scales yellowish white, leaves of a leaden grey colour, and tapering at the base, is by some botanists termed F. spathulata. The Common Filago is a very frequent and singular little plant, having at the top of its cottony stem a globular assemblage of heads, from the base of which arise two or more flower-stalks, which are prolific in the same manner. The old herbalists on this account called this the wicked or impious herb (Herba impia), as if the young shoots were undutiful to the parent stem by exalting themselves above it. The plant is about six or eight inches high, and flowers in June and July. It grows on heaths and dry gravelly places, and in some of its forms has a faint odour, resembling that of Tansy.

33. PETASÍTES (Butter-bur).

1. P. vulgáris (Common Butter-bur).-Leaves roundish, heart-shaped at the base, unequally toothed, downy beneath; root perennial. In tracing the course of some of those streamlets which sparkle among the bright grass of the summer meadow, or in selecting some quiet little nook of beauty by the river side, which would serve well for the painter, how often have we paused by some spot enriched by the snowy blossoms of the Meadow Sweet, and the purple flowers of the Willow Herb, where large masses of the leaves of the Butter-bur lying on the water's bank made an admirable foreground to the picture! The young duckling from the pool was perchance sheltering itself beneath the broad canopy which served as a screen from sun or passing shower. Even the willow wren, whose wings, one would imagine, might waft it far enough into the very heart of a wood, sought at such moments the ready shelter of this large broad leaf. As an old herbalist once said of it, the leaf is large enough to form the cover for a small table; and we have seen these green leaves standing on thick stalks a foot long, and very nearly three feet broad. But though the artist would look on their masses with delighted eyes, yet the owner of the pasture land would by no means respond to his pleasure. This plant is the most troublesome of all our water weeds, its long root creeping far into the soil. It so multiplies the plant in wet meadows, that Mr. Curtis says, a piece of this root, only two inches long, and the thickness of his little finger, was dug up, after being planted eighteen months, when it appeared that many shoots had extended to the length of six feet, and penetrated two feet in depth, while the whole mass of root weighed eight pounds. The root, which is white, with a thick black skin, abounds in a resinous matter, and has a strong resinous odour, and a bitter and acrid flavour. It was formerly used as a medicine in fevers, and was believed to be so efficacious in the cure of the plague, that one of the old names of the plant was Pestilencewort. "It is under the dominion of the sun," says an old writer, "and, therefore, a great strengthener of the heart and cheerer of the vital spirits." He adds: "It were well if gentlewomen would keepe this roote preserved, to help their poore neighbours. It is fit the rich should help the poore, for the poore