s
wild in England, and seems by some botanists to be considered indigenous,
should have a Flemish name. Prior, our chief authority, asserts that the
early herbalists constantly took names from continental writers, and I
think his judgment may be trusted. The problem of the derivation of the
word gooseberry may at least serve to illustrate the difficulty of the
subject.

The name _Hemlock_, which nowadays has a wicked poisonous sound, has in
truth a very innocent origin. It is compounded of _hem_, _i.e._ haulm, a
stalk, and _lock_, or leac, a plant, thus signifying merely a plant with
a stem. Jack of the Buttery, a name applied to _Sedum acre_, is said to
be a corruption from _bot_, _i.e._ an internal parasite, and _theriac_,
by which was meant a cure for that evil. The last-named word has turned
into "Jack," and _bot_ has grown into "buttery."

Lamb's tongue is said to be a name for _Plantago media_; but this must, I
think, be a corruption of land tongue, which is highly appropriate to the
tongue-like leaves lying so closely appressed to the soil that no blade
of grass grows under them, as though they were determined to spite any
one who should root them up by disfiguring his lawn with naked patches.
But still better evidence is forthcoming in the fact that my old
Cambridgeshire gardener always called them land tongues. Why the
Anglo-Saxons used the name _way bread_ for the plantain I do not see: the
fact is vouched for by Cockayne in his book entitled _Leechdoms_.

In Gloucestershire the plantain is called the _fire-leaf_, a name which
records the belief that plantains are a danger in the way of heating
hay-stacks.

The word madder, _i.e._ the name of the plant which supplies the red dye
for the trousers of our French allies, has a curious history. Madder is
derived from _mad_, a worm, and should therefore be applied to cochineal,
the red colouring matter produced by the minute creature called a coccus.
But still more confusion meets us: the word vermilion which is now used
for a red colour of mineral origin, is derived from _vermis_, a worm, and
should therefore also be applied to cochineal. The word pink, one of the
most familiar of plant-names, has a curious origin, being simply the
German _Pfingst_, a corruption of Pentecost, _i.e._ the fiftieth day
after Easter.

The tendency to make some kind of sense, or at least something familiar,
from the unfamiliar, comes out in name service-tree (_Pyrus tormina