hereby it has been prominently classed amongst the mystic
plants. But, apart from the doctrine of signatures, it would seem that
the fern-seed was also supposed to derive its power of making invisible
from the cloud, says Mr. Kelly, [12] "that contained the heavenly fire
from which the plant is sprung." Whilst speaking, too, of the
fern-seed's property of making people invisible, it is of interest to
note that in the Icelandic and Pomeranian myths the schamir or
"raven-stone" renders its possessor invisible; and according to a North
German tradition the luck-flower is enbued with the same wonderful
qualities. It is essential, however, that the flower be found by
accident, for he who seeks it never finds it. In Sweden hazel-nuts are
reputed to have the power of making invisible, and from their reputed
magical properties have been, from time immemorial, in great demand for
divination. All those plants whose leaves bore a fancied resemblance to
the moon were, in days of old, regarded with superstitious reverence.
The moon-daisy, the type of a class of plants resembling the pictures of
a full moon, were exhibited, says Dr. Prior, "in uterine complaints, and
dedicated in pagan times to the goddess of the moon." The moonwort
(_Botrychium lunaria_), often confounded with the common "honesty"
(_Lunaria biennis_) of our gardens, so called from the semi-lunar shape
of the segments of its frond, was credited with the most curious
properties, the old alchemists affirming that it was good among other
things for converting quicksilver into pure silver, and unshoeing such
horses as trod upon it. A similar virtue was ascribed to the horse-shoe
vetch (_Hippocrepis comosa_), so called from the shape of the legumes,
hence another of its mystic nicknames was "unshoe the horse."

But referring to the doctrine of signatures in folk-medicine, a
favourite garden flower is Solomon's seal (_Polygonatum multiflorum_).
On cutting the roots transversely, some marks are apparent not unlike
the characters of a seal, which to the old herbalists indicated its use
as a seal for wounds. [13] Gerarde, describing it, tells us how, "the
root of Solomon's seal stamped, while it is fresh and greene, and
applied, taketh away in one night, or two at the most, any bruise, black
or blue spots, gotten by falls, or women's wilfulness in stumbling upon
their hasty husbands' fists." For the same reason it was called by the
French herbalists "l'herbe de la rupture." Th