This Speaking Garden
A Modern Herbal. By Mrs. M. Grieve, F.R.H.S. Edited by Mrs. C. F. Leyell. 2 vols. (Cape. 42s.) Iv 1629, John Parkinson, dedicating his Paradisi In Sole Paradisus Terresiris to " The Queenes Most Excellent Maijestie," wrote—" Accept, I beseech your Maijestie this speaking Garden, that it may informe you in all particulars of your store, as well as wants, when you cannot see any of them fresh upon the ground." Some twenty years later, Nicholas Culpeper published his " astrologo-physical discourse of the vulgar Herbs of the Nation," The English Physician Enlarged. Since then the silence of the herbalists has been almost unbroken, for by the end of the seventeenth century botany and medicine had ceased to be the natural complements of one another. For this reason alone, a modern and comprehensive herbal, including traditional lore, and making mention of the uses of standardized extracts and tinctures, is welcome. But Mrs. Grieve's book is not important merely as a novelty : it is intended for the use of doctors and botanists as well as for the pleasure of the flower-lover.
In her introduction, Mrs. Leyell, who is the founder of The Society of Herbalists, explains how the book began. She says that just before she opened Culpeper House, a list of Mrs. Grieve's monologues on herbs were sent to her by post, and these became the nucleus of the herbal. The original pamphlets only included English herbs, many of which had been grown by Mrs. Grieve, who, during the War, did much for the herb industry in England at a time when medicinal plants could not be imported. Later on it was decided to make men- tion of American herbs.
The book is arranged alphabetically, in the same manner as a dictionary. Each plant is described under its common name, and in nearly every instance the synonyms, part used, habitat, description, constituents and medical actions are given. At the end of the second volume there is an index of the country names of the plants. If the arrangement of the book could be bettered it would be by the addition of an index of recipes, for the author includes some hundreds of these. There are instructions for the making of pot-pourri, ointments, lotions, sauces, wines and fruit brandies. Some are simple, as one for a herb beer that is made of " armfuls of Meadowsweet, Yarrow, Dandelions and Nettles, sweetened with old honey and well worked with barm." Others, such as a seventeenth-century recipe for almond cake are much more complicated, but there is no reason why any modern cook should not make this delicacy and many other romantic confections, even the " kissing comfits " alluded to by Falstaff, which were made of the candied roots of sea- holly, a plant which has aphrodisiac virtues. The modern prescriptions for tonics and liniments are accurate and detailed. Though an additional index might be useful, its absence gives us the more excuse for turning over the pages of a book that is as full of romance as of facts, and is, like Parkinson's, a " speak- ing garden " whose every flower tells some old story.
There is one very curious fact, emphasized over and over again in the pages of the herbal, and mentioned in the intro- duction, and that is that " the names of plants are very often derived from their original use in medicine, and the traditional use has been derived by some peculiarity of the plant based on the doctrine of signatures, its shape, growth, colour, scent or
taste or habitat." For instance, the flower of the Seulleap is good for insomnia - the bark of willows which grow by water, cures rheumatism, caused by damp, and most of the flower- cures for jaundice are yellow. Then there are cowslips " In their gold coats spots you see These be rubies fairy favours In these freckles lie their savours."
The juice of the flowers removes freckles from women's faces, making them, so Turner says, " fayre in the eyes of the world rather than in the eyes of God, whom they are not afrayde to offend." So it appears that searchers after simples sought the hair of some similar creature if not that of the very dog that bit them.
As one reads, one realizes how little of medical truth is our own discovery. Pliny recommended that Coltsfoot leaves should be burned, and the smoke inhaled as a cure for catarrh, and to-day these leaves are the basis of British Herb Tobacco. Elder-flower water is now an official preparation of the British Pharmacopoeia, and John Evelyn wrote of the tree : " If the medicinal property of its leaves, bark and berries were known, I cannot tell what our country men would ail for which he might not fetch a remedy from every hedge." Evelyn, if he could see this book, would be delighted, for more than ten pages are devoted to the Elder, to accounts of its virtues and to legends associated with it. One of the most interesting of these is that of the dryad named Hylde-Moer, the Elder Tree mother, who is, I remember, one of Hans Andersen's heroines. Hylde-Moer was a jealous creature, and haunted the furniture made from wood of her tree. If a baby was laid in an elder wood cradle, this unnatural mother tweaked its legs. Accord- ing to tradition, permission to cut Elders must be asked on bended knee, and no axe must be lifted until Hylde-Moer gives consent by keeping silent There is not one page of this enchanting book which does not contain something to interest the common reader as well as the serious student. Much of the lore of Galen, Dioscorides, Pliny, Gerard, Parkinson and Culpeper is given. The very names of the flowers suggest stories. The Hearts-ease, or wild pansy, is more gaily christened than any. Some of the sobriquets suggest musical comedy songs, especially " Jack- jump-up-and-kiss-me," " Meet-me-in-the-Entry," and " Kiss- her-in-the-buttery."
I cannot pretend to estimate the immense value that this book must have for doctors and chemists, but I do know that, regarded simply as a history of flowers, it adds to the joys of the country. As Mrs. Leyell says : " Surely it makes a garden more romantic and wonderful to know that every flower from the first snowdrop to the Christmas Rose is not only there for Man's pleasure but has compassionate use in his pain."
There are, by way of illustration, about two hundred prints of flowers that are most beautifully reproduced. I wish it had been possible for the author to arrange for the inclusion of tiny line drawings of every plant mentioned. But there is so much to be grateful for that any criticism seems churlish, and might justly rouse author and editor to say with Parkinson, " Let Momus bite his lips and eate his heart 1 "
BARBARA EUPIIAN TODD.
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