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Like many of its relatives, catnip was a popular medicinal remedy for many fleshly ills; now it is practically relegated to domestic medicine. Even in this it is a moribund remedy for infant flatulence, and is clung to only by unlettered nurses of a passing generation. The small white flowers, borne in umbels, are followed by long, pointed, black seeds with a conspicuous furrow from end to end.
V. DAHURICUM. Dahuria, 1785. This is a charming hardy species, which in May and June is covered with numerous umbels of showy white flowers. It forms a rather spreading bush of 6 feet or 8 feet high, with gray downy branches, and neat foliage. The berries are oval-oblong, red at first, but becoming black and faintly scented when fully ripe. V. DENTATUM. Arrowwood.
These bear two or three thick, fleshy segmented leaves and umbels of small whitish flowers, followed by yellow, elliptical, convex, ribbed, very light seeds, which rarely retain their germinating power more than a year. In gardens the seed is therefore generally sown in the autumn as soon as mature in fairly rich, light, well-drained loam.
Now two of them bear their flowers in bracted whorls, condensed into umbels at the summits of a scape. The scapes themselves are inserted in the axils of the basal leaves, and produce the flowers above them. In the third species, Primula acaulis, this scape is lacking and the flowers are inserted singly in the axils on long slender stalks.
HEDGE-HOREHOUND. The whole herb is said to dye a yellow colour. THALICTRUM flavum. YELLOW MEADOW-RUE. The roots and leaves both give out a fine yellow colour. THAPSIA villosa. DEADLY CARROT. The umbels are employed by the spanish peasants to dye yellow. TORMENTILLA erecta. ERECT TORMENTIL. This root is red, and might probably be usefully employed. TRIFOLIUM pratense.
The cherry is the next wild fruit which claims our attention, and of this we find two varieties. This fruit is also called in some countries coroon, from corone, a crow. Its flowers are in nearly sessile umbels of the purest white; its leaves broadly lance-shaped and downy beneath, pointed and serrated, with two unequal glands at the base.
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