English. Incidentally, one cannot help regretting
that so many of our old Saxon plant names have fallen into disuse.
"Waybroad," for instance, is much more descriptive than "plantain,"
which is misleading.[7] "Maythen" also is surely preferable to
"camomile," and "wergulu" is more characteristic of that fierce weed
than "nettle." Those of us who are gardeners will certainly agree that
"unfortraedde" is the right name for knotweed. And is not "joy of the
ground" a delightful name for periwinkle?

The oldest illustrated herbal which has come down to us from Saxon
times is the translation of the Latin _Herbarium Apuleii
Platonici_.[8] The original Latin work is believed to date from the
fifth century, though no copy so ancient as this is in existence now.
The name Apuleius Platonicus is possibly fictitious and nothing is
known of the writer, who was, of course, distinct from Apuleius
Madaurensis, the author of the _Golden Ass_. The Saxon translation of
this herbal (now in the British Museum) is supposed to date from A.D.
1000-1050, and belongs to the school of AElfric of Canterbury. The
frontispiece is a coloured picture in which Plato is represented
holding a large volume which is being given him by AEsculapius and the
Centaur, and on the other side of the page is a blue circle spotted
with white and red, within which is the name of the book: "Herbarium
Apuleii Platonici quod accepit ab Escolapio et Chirone centauro
magistro Achillis." The book consists of 132 chapters, in each of
which a herb is described, and there are accompanying illustrations of
the herbs. Throughout the book there are also remarkable pictures of
snakes, scorpions and unknown winged creatures. It has been pointed
out that the figures of herbs are obviously not from the original
plants, but are copied from older figures, and these from others older
still, and one wonders what the original pictures were like. It is
interesting to think that perhaps the illustrations in this Saxon
herbal are directly descended, so to speak, from the drawings of
Cratevas,[9] Dionysius or Metrodorus, of whom Pliny tells us "They
drew the likeness of herbs and wrote under them their effects." The
picture of the lily is very attractive in spite of the fact that the
flowers are painted pale blue. The stamens in the figure stand out
beyond the petals and look like rays of light, with a general effect
that is curiously pleasing. One of the most interesting figures is
that of