able Things," and there without any description, only as part of a
medical recipe: "Whosoever is tormented with sciatica or the hip gout,
let them take an herb called Speargrass, and stamp it and lay a little
thereof upon the grief." The plant is not mentioned by Lyte, Gerard,
Parkinson, or the other old herbalists, and so it is somewhat of a
puzzle. Steevens quotes from an old play, "Victories of Henry the
Fifth": "Every day I went into the field, I would take a straw and
thrust it into my nose, and make my nose bleed;" but a straw was never
called Speargrass. Asparagus was called Speerage, and the young shoots
might have been used for the purpose, but I have never heard of such a
use; Ranunculus flammula was called Spearwort, from its lanceolate
leaves, and so (according to Cockayne) was Carex acuta, still called
Spiesgrass in German. Mr. Beisly suggests the Yarrow or Millfoil; and we
know from several authorities (Lyte, Hollybush, Gerard, Phillip, Cole,
Skinner, and Lindley) that the Yarrow was called Nosebleed; but there
seems no reason to suppose that it was ever called Speargrass, or could
have been called a Grass at all, though the term Grass was often used in
the most general way. Dr. Prior suggests the Common Reed, which is
probable. I have been rather inclined to suppose it to be one of the
Horse-tails (Equiseta).[278:1] They are very sharp and spearlike, and
their rough surfaces would soon draw blood; and as a decoction of
Horse-tail was a remedy for stopping bleeding of the nose, I have
thought it very probable that such a supposed virtue could only have
arisen when remedies were sought for on the principle of "similia
similibus curantur;" so that a plant, which in one form produced
nose-bleeding, would, when otherwise administered, be the natural
remedy. But I now think that all these suggested plants must give way in
favour of the common Couch-grass (_Triticum repens_). In the eastern
counties, this is still called Speargrass; and the sharp underground
stolons might easily draw blood, when the nose is tickled with them. The
old emigrants from the eastern counties took the name with them to
America, but applied it to a Poa (Webster's "Dictionary," s.v.
Speargrass).

FOOTNOTES:

[278:1] "Hippurus Anglice dicitur sharynge gyrs."--TURNER'S _Libellus_,
1538.

SQUASH, _see_ PEAS.

STOVER.

_Iris._

Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads thatch'd wit