There are two plants that I do not like to omit, for their history’s sake, though their power to do good is no longer believed in, Plantain and Lungwort. The first was considered good for wounds in the days of Chaucer, and Shakespeare mentions it.
_Romeo._ Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.
Lungwort (_Pulmonaria officinalis_) owes its name and its reputation to the white spots on the leaves, which were thought to be the “signature,” showing that it would cure infirmities and ulcers of the lungs. It is remarkable how many popular names this flower has. Gerarde tells us that the leaves are used among pot-herbes, and calls it Cowslips of Jerusalem, Wild Comfrey and Sage of Bethlem; and other country names are, Beggar’s Basket, Soldiers and Sailors, Adam and Eve, and in Dorset, Mary’s Tears. The name Adam and Eve arose from the fact that some of the flowers are red and others blue: red, in earlier days, being usually associated with men and blue with women. One of Drayton’s prettiest verses alludes to it.
“Maids, get the choicest flowers, a garland and entwine; Nor pink, nor pansies, let there want, be sure of eglantine. See that there be store of lilies, (Call’d of shepherds daffadillies) With roses, damask, white, and red, the dearest fleur-de-lis, The cowslip of Jerusalem, and clove of Paradise.”
“And first, her fern-seed doth bestow The kernel of the mistletow, And here and there as Puck should go, With terror to affright him.
The nightshade straws to work him ill, There with her vervain and her dill, That hindreth witches of their will, Of purpose to dispight him.
Then sprinkled she the juice of rue, That groweth underneath the yew, With nine drops of the midnight dew From lunary distilling.”
“Trefoil, vervain, John’s wort, dill, Hinders witches of their will.”
Amongst the account-books of the Physic Garden in Chelsea, there is one on whose fly-leaf is scrawled a list of “Botanical Writers before Christ.” It begins:
Zoroaster. Orpheus. Moses. Solomon. Homer. Solon.
Names that one hardly expects to find grouped together, and especially not under this heading. The vegetable world, however, has attracted writers since the earliest times, and in the days when supernatural agencies were almost always brought forward to account for uncomprehended phenomena, it was not marvellous that misty lore should lead to the association of plants and magic. The book of nature is not always easy to read, and the older students drew from it very personal interpretations. Some herbs were magical because they were used in spells and sorceries; others, because they had power in themselves. For instance, Basil, the perfume of which was thought to cause sympathy between two people, and in Moldavia they say it can even stop a wandering youth upon his way and make him love the maiden from whose hand he accepts a sprig. The Crocus flower, too, belongs to the second class, and brings laughter and great joy, and so it is with others. Plants were also credited with strong friendships and “enmities” amongst themselves. “The ancients” held strong views about their “sympathies and antipathies,” and this sympathy or antipathy was attributed to individual likes and dislikes. “Rue dislikes Basil,” says Pliny, “but Rue and the Fig-tree are in a great league and amitie” together. Alexanders loveth to grow in the same place as Rosemary, but the Radish is “at enmetie” with Hyssop. Savory and Onions are the better for each other’s neighbourhood, and Coriander, Dill, Mallows, Herb-Patience and Chervil “love for companie to be set or sowne together.” Bacon refers to some of these, but he took a prosaic view and thought these predilections due to questions of soil!