plants flowering on certain dates, such as Saints' days
or other church festivals. The snowdrop has been called the Fair Maid of
February, because it was supposed to flower on Candlemas Day, 2nd
February, which would be 15th February according to the modern calendar.

The name St John's wort, which we habitually apply to several species of
_Hypericum_, is correctly used only for _H. perforatum_. Its English
name is said to have been given from its flowering on St John's Day, 24th
June. This would be 7th July, new style, and I find that Blomefield's
average of eight annual observations is 4th July.

I had been wondering why there seemed to be no name for St John's wort
suggested by the glands, which show as pellucid dots when the leaf is
held up to the light. And in Britten and Holland's _Dictionary of
English Plant Names_, 1886, I found that _H. perforatum_ was called Balm
of Warrior's Wound, which must refer to the innumerable stabs it
exhibits, though they are more numerous than most warriors can endure. A
closely related plant is _Hypericum androsaemum_, known as Tutsan, said
to mean _toute saine_, as curing all hurts. In Wales, as I well remember
forty years ago, the leaves were kept in bibles. They are, as I learn
from a Welsh scholar, known as Blessed One's leaves.

The common yellow wayside plant _Geum urbanum_ is known as Herb Benet,
because, like St Benet, it had the power of counteracting the effect of
poison.

The sweet-william is said by Forster to be so named from flowering on St
William's Day, 25th June. But Blomefield's date is 17th June, which
would be 4th June, old style. A much more probable explanation is that
William is a corruption of the French name _oeillet_, a word derived from
the Latin _ocellus_, a little eye. So that the ancestry of the name runs
thus:--_Ocellus_--oeillet--Willy--William.

Oxalis, the wood-sorrel, was known as hallelujah, not only in England but
in several parts of the Continent, from its blossoming between Easter and
Whitsuntide, when psalms were sung ending in the word hallelujah.

Historical.

Some plant-names take us back to historical personages. The Carline
thistle is named after Karl the Great, better known as Charlemagne.
There was a pestilence in his army, and in answer to his prayer an angel
appeared and shot, from a crossbow, a bolt, which fell on the Carline
thistle with which the Emperor proceeded to conquer the pestilence.

Another magic