There is a variety with resinous-scented, larger, more crowded flowers, of local occurrence. Agrimony was formerly held in some repute as a medicinal plant, and from this circumstance it gets its name. The ancient Greeks had a word argema signifying the affection of the eyes to which we apply the term cataract, and a plant which was reputed to cure argema they called argemone, a word which has since been corrupted into agrimony. “Yarb doctors” still give it a place in their pharmacopœia.
Agrimony flowers from June to September.
Agrimony.
Agrimonia eupatoria.
—Rosaceæ.—
Common Flax.
Linum usitatissimum.
—Lineæ.—
Common Flax (Linum usitatissimum).
Occasionally the rambler will find the Flax in cornfields and wastes, by oil-mills and in the neighbourhood of railway stations. Wherever it may be found it is an escape from cultivation. As a truly wild plant the “most used” flax is not known: in cultivation, as the parent of linen garments, it has been known from the infancy of the human race. To-day the exports of flax and linen from the United Kingdom are worth about £5,500,000 per annum. It is therefore a plant that would be entitled to respectful consideration when we meet it, even if it had no grace or beauty to commend it to us.
Common Flax is an annual plant, with erect slender stems about a foot and a half high. Its narrow lance-shaped leaves are arranged alternately and at a distance from each other. The flowers are large, and purplish-blue in colour. Five is the number dominating the structure of the flower: sepals, petals, stamens, glands, ovary (5 cells), styles—all in fives. It flowers in June and July.