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271
The Folk-lore of Plants
·
T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
174
"Then
purged
with
euphrasy
and
rue
His
visual
orbs,
for
he
had
much
to
see."
Spenser
speaks
of
it
in
the
same
strain:--
"Yet
euphrasie
may
not
be
left
unsung,
That
gives
dim
eyes
to
wander
leagues
around."
And
Thomson
says:--
"If
she,
whom
I
implore,
Urania,
deign
With
euphrasy
to
purge
away
the
mists,
Which,
humid,
dim
the
mirror
of
the
mind."
With
reference
to
its
use
in
modern
times,
Anne
Pratt[3]
tells
us
how,
"on
going
into
a
small
shop
in
Dover,
she
saw
a
quantity
of
the
plant
suspended
from
the
ceiling,
and
was
informed
that
it
was
gathered
and
dried
as
being
good
for
weak
eyes;"
and
in
many
of
our
rural
districts
I
learn
that
the
same
value
is
still
attached
to
it
by
the
peasantry.
Again,
it
is
interesting
to
observe
how,
under
a
variety
of
forms,
this
piece
of
superstition
has
prevailed
in
different
parts
of
the
world.
By
virtue
of
a
similar
association
of
ideas,
for
instance,
the
gin-seng
[4]
was
said
by
the
Chinese
and
North
American
Indians
to
possess
certain
virtues
which
were
deduced
from
the
shape
of
the
root,
supposed
to
resemble
the
human
body
[5]--a
plant
with
which
may
be
compared
our
mandrake.
The
Romans
of
old
had
their
rock-breaking
plant
called
"saxifraga"
or
sassafras;
[6]
and
we
know
in
later
times
how
the
granulated
roots
of
our
white
meadow
saxifrage
(Saxifraga
granulata),
resembling
small
stones,
were
supposed
to
indicate
its
efficacy
in
the
cure
of
calculous
complaints.
Hence
one
of
its
names,
stonebreak.
The
stony
seeds
of
the
gromwell
were,
also,
used
in
cases
of
stone--a
plant
formerly
known
as
lichwale,
or,
as
in
a
MS.
of
the
fifteenth
century,
lythewale,
stone-switch.
[7]
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