her name
for the plant is mother's heart, {107} and is no doubt referable to the
shape of the seed pod. Children in England, also in Germany and
Switzerland, used to play at the simple game of asking a companion to
gather a pod, and then jeering at him for having plucked out his mother's
heart.

The name columbine comes from the flower's obvious resemblance to a group
of doves, and its Latin name _aquilegia_, meaning a collection of eagles,
is a nobler form of the same idea.

Dead-man's fingers is a fine uncanny name for the innocent _Orchis
maculata_, and refers to its branching white tuber.

Garlick is a very ancient name, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon _gar_,
a spear, and _leac_, a plant; in the name house-leek the word still bears
its original meaning of a plant.

_Tragopogon_, the goat's beard, which closes its flowers about mid-day,
was once known as go-to-bed-at-noon.

The pansy has been called Herb trinity from the triple colouring of its
petals. In Welsh, and also in German, the pansy is called stepmother.
The lower petal is the most decorative, and this is the stepmother
herself. On examining the back of the flower it will be seen that she is
supported by two green leaflets, known as the _sepals_. These are called
her two chairs. Then come her two daughters, less smart, and having only
a chair apiece. Lastly, the two step-daughters, still more plainly
dressed and with but one chair between them.

Polemonium, from its numerous leaflets arranged in pairs, has received
the picturesque name of Jacob's ladder. I remember the pleasure with
which I first saw it growing wild in the hayfields of the Engadine.

Polygonatum, _i.e._ Solomon's seal, has been christened _Scala coeli_,
the ladder to heaven, on the same principle. The name Solomon's seal is
not obviously appropriate till we dig up the plant, when the underground
stem is found marked with curious scars, which, however, should be
pentagonal if they are to represent Solomon's pentacle.

Herb twopence (_Lysimchia nummularia_) is so named after the round
leaflets arranged in pairs along its creeping stalk. I do not know why
_Inula conyza_ is called ploughman's spikenard, but it is a picturesque
name.

Everyone knows the garden plant touch-me-not, so called from the curious
irritability of its pods, which writhe in an uncanny way when we gather
them. This quality is expressed twice over in the Latin name _Impatiens
noli-me-tangere_. But th