becomes more succulent, and the fruit larger, whilst more oily, and
therefore acquiring an increase of aromatic taste and odour. In
Germany the seeds are given for hysterical affections, being finely
powdered and mixed with ginger and salt to spread with butter on
bread. As a draught for flatulent colic twenty grains of the
powdered seeds may be taken with two teaspoonfuls of sugar in a
wineglassful of hot water. Caraway-seed cake was formerly a
standing institution at the feasts given by farmers to their labourers
at the end of wheat sowing. But narcotic effects have been known
to follow the chewing of Caraway seeds in a large quantity, such
as three ounces at a time.

[84] As regards its stock of honey the Caraway may be termed,
like Uriah Heep, and in a double sense, "truly umbel." The
diminutive florets on its flat disk are so shallow that lepidopterous
and hymenopterous insects, with their long proboses, stand no
chance of getting a meal. They fare as poorly as the stork did in
the fable, whom the fox invited to dinner served on a soup plate.
As Sir John Lubbock has shown, out of fifty-five visitants to the
Caraway plant for nectar, one moth, nine bees, twenty-one flies,
and twenty-four miscellaneous midges constituted the dinner
party.

CHAMOMILE.

No Simple in the whole catalogue of herbal medicines is possessed
of a quality more friendly and beneficial to the intestines than
"Chamomile flowers." This herb was well known to the Greeks,
who thought it had an odour like that of apples, and therefore they
named it "Earth Apple," from two of their words, _kamai_--on the
ground, and _melon_--an apple. The Spaniards call it _Manzanilla_,
from a little apple, and they give the same name to one of
their lightest sherries flavoured with this plant. The flowers,
or "blows" of the Chamomile belong to the daisy genus, having an
outer fringe of white ray florets, with a central yellow disk, in
which lies the chief medicinal virtue of the plant. In the cultivated
Chamomile the white petals increase, while the yellow centre
diminishes; thus it is that the curative properties of the wild
Chamomile are the more powerful. The true Chamomile is to be
distinguished from the bitter Chamomile (_matricaria chamomilla_)
which has weaker properties, and grows erect, with several
flowers at a level on the same stalk. The true Chamomile
grows prostrate, and produces but [85] one flower (with a convex,
not conical, yellow disk) f