of words we are surrounded with
difficulties.

In some instances, however, it is clear that plant-names were forgotten
with the growth of Protestantism. The common milk-wort used to be called
the Gang-flower {100a} because it blossoms in what our ancestors called
Gang Week,--"three days before the Ascension, when processions were made
. . . to perambulate the parishes with the Holy Cross and Litanies, to
mark their boundaries, and invoke the blessing of God on the crops."
{100b} Bishop Kennet says that the girls made garlands of milk-wort and
used them "in those solemn processions." As far as dates are concerned
the name is fairly appropriate, for Rogation Sunday is 27th April, _i.e._
10th May, old style, and, according to Blomefield, {100c} from eight
years' observation, the milk-wort flowers on 15th May. The milk-wort is
a small plant, and the labour of making garlands from it must have been
considerable. There must have been a reason for using a blue flower, and
I gather from a friend learned in such matters that blue is associated
with the Virgin Mary, to whom the month of May is dedicated.

In this case we can perhaps understand why the name should have all but
died out with the disappearance of these old ceremonies. But why should
the name _milk-wort_ have survived? Its scientific name, Polygala, is
derived from Greek and means "much milk," and the plant was supposed to
encourage lactation. It is an instance of names being more long-lived
than the beliefs which they chronicle.

There are, of course, many plants called after saints. Thus the pig-nut
(_Bunium_) is called St Anthony's nut, because, as quoted by Prior, "The
wretched Antonius" was "forced to mind the filthy herds of swine." The
buttercup (_R. bulbosus_) was called St Anthony's turnip from its tubers
being said to be eaten by pigs.

St Catherine's flower (_Nigella_) (generally known as love-in-a-mist or
devil-in-a-bush) is called after the martyr from the arrangement of its
styles, which recall the spokes of St Catherine's wheel. I do not mean
the well-known fireworks but the instrument of torture on which the saint
died. St James' wort is the yellow daisy-like flower _Senecio Jacobaea_,
known as rag-wort. It is said to have been used as a cure for the
diseases of horses, of which he was the patron.

In the old herbals the cowslip is called St Peter's wort from the
resemblance of the flowers to a bunch of keys--no doubt the keys of
he