Dr. Prior, by his new, valuable, and learned
work on the Popular Names of British Plants,
has made this study comparatively easy. Several
plants are named from the earth itself—earth-
balls, earth-gall, earth-moss, and earth-smoke.
The word earth, from a verb signifying to sow or
till, designates the soil which was penetrated,
ploughed, or laboured, and can be traced in the
languages of the most ancient nations. Ar is
the root of words signifying labour in the Greek,
Latin, German, and Anglo-Saxon languages.
Long before the Germanic separated from the
other races of men, the roots of whose words
are to be found in the Indian Vedas, the soil
bore a name implying the labours or tillage of
agriculture. Earth-balls is the English name of
tuber cibarium, called by the French truffles,
and by the Italians tuffola, from the Latin terræ
tuber, the name which Pliny gives it. The
instinct by which the pigs discover these tubers,
even when deep in the ground, is one of the
most marvellous of animal instincts. Certain
plants of the gentian tribe are called earth-galls,
from their bitterness, gal or gealle, whence the
participle galling, being Frisian and Anglo-Saxon
for disagreeable or nauseous. Earth-smoke
is a translation of the Latin fumus terræ, a
name which has been vulgarised into fumitory.
This plant was long believed by the ancient
botanists to be produced by spontaneous generation
without seed, and from vapours rising out
of the earth. The "Grete Herball" says, "It is
called fume or smoke of the earth, because it is
engendered of coarse fumositie rysing from the
earthe, and because it cometh out of the earthe in
great quantite lyke smoke, thys grosse or coarse
fumositie of the earth wyndeth and wryeth out,
and by working of the ayre and sunne tourneth
in too this herbe." The theory, or rather the
hypothesis of spontaneous generation, has still
advocates among learned men, and under the
name of Heterogenia is said to be the mode of
reproduction of certain microscopical plants and
animals, whose seeds or eggs are not yet known.

Mother of time (Thymus serpyllum), mother-
wort (Leonurus cardiaca), are names derived
from the Anglo-Saxon term moder, which is one
of a group of words indicating the family
relations clearly traceable to the primeval stock of
the human species. Bopp considers it to be
equivalent to the German messen, measure; and
Schweitzer regards it as the root of the Sanscrit
matr, creator. The plants were deemed useful
to mothers. The names of the plants prescribed
to maidens throw an interesting light upon the
ancient treatment of the diseases of women,
Maithes or maghet (Pyrethrum parthenium),
red mayde-weed (Adonis autumnalis), maudlin-
wort or moon-daisy (Chrysanthemum
Leucanthemum), mather (Anthemis cotula). In Essex
and Norfolk a grown girl is still called a
"mauther." Hence the old saying,

    A sling for a mather, a bow for a boy.

The moon-daisy is a flower like a large daisy,
and resembling the pictures of the full moon.
The periods of the moon were the first
measures of time. The Persian "mah," the Latin
mensis, and the English month, with similar
words in many other languages, are all traceable
to a root "ma," signifying a measure;
and hence the dedication of the maudlin-wort
or moon-daisy to Diana, the patroness of young
women.

When the word "lady" occurs in plant names
it sometimes alludes to the Virgin Mary, and in
Puritan times it was changed into Venus; for
example: Our Lady's comb became Venus's comb.
Galium verum, or G. mollugo, is called Our
Lady's bed-straw, from its soft, pluffy, flocculent
stems and golden flowers. The name may allude
more particularly to the Virgin Mary having
given birth to her son in a stable, with nothing
but wild flowers for her bedding. Clematis
vitalba, commonly called traveller's joy, from the
shade and shelter it affords to weary wayfarers,
is also called Lady's bower, from "its aptness
in making arbours, bowers, and shadie covertures
in gardens." Statice armeria, the clustered pink,
which is called thrift, from the past participle of
the verb threave or thrive, is, on account of its
close cushion-like growth, called Lady's cushion.
Scandix pecten Veneris is called Lady's comb,
the beaks of the seed vessels resembling the
teeth of a comb; Alchemilla vulgaris is named
Lady's mantle, from the shape and vandyked
edge of the leaf; and Campanula hybrida, from
the resemblance of its expanded flower set on
its elongated ovary to an ancient metallic mirror
on its straight handle, is the Lady's looking-glass.
Two plants with soft inflated calyces (Anthyllis
vulneraria and Digitalis purpurea) are Lady's
fingers, and Neottia spiralis, with its flower
spikes rising above each other like braided hair,
is Lady's tresses. Dodder (cuscuta), from its
string-like stems, is called Lady's laces; and
Digraphis arundinacea, from the ribbon-like
striped leaves, Lady's garters. In Wiltshire,
Convolvulus sepium is called Lady's nightcap.
Cypripedium calceolus, from the shape of its
flower, is called Lady's slipper; and Cardamine
pratensis, from the shape of its flowers, like little
smocks hung out to dry, is the Lady's smock all
silver white of Shakespeare. Lady's thimble is
a name of the blue or hare bell (Campanula
rotundifolia), and witch's thimble is common to
this blue flower and the white Silene maritima,
or sea campion. Carduus marianus is the Lady's
thistle, the blessed milk thistle, whose green
leaves have been spotted white ever since the
milk of the Virgin fell upon it when she was
nursing Jesus, and endowed it with miraculous
virtues.

Of an exactly opposite character is Devil's
milk, a name given by our forefathers to the
Euphorbia, from its white acid poisonous milk.
While the beaks of the seed vessels of Scandix
pecten cause it to be called Venus's comb, the
long awns are called Devil's darning-needles.
Nigella corniculata has horned capsules peering