BUCKTHORN.—Of one variety of Buckthorn (Rhamnus palinurus) it is said that Christ’s Crown of Thorns was composed. Of another variety (R. Frangula) the Mongols make their idols, selecting the wood on account of its rich hue.——The Buckthorn is under the dominion of Saturn.
BUGLOSS.—The Bugloss (Anchusa) has been made the emblem of Falsehood, because the roots of one of its species (A. tinctoria) are used in making rouge for the face. In the wilds of America, the Indians paint their bodies red with the root of a Bugloss (Anchusa Virginica) indigenous to their country. Galen notices the use of the Bugloss as a cosmetic in his time, and the rouge made from the roots of this plant is said to be the most ancient of all the paints prepared for the face.——Pliny says that the Anchusa was used by the Romans for colouring and dyeing; and adds, that if a person who has chewed this plant should spit in the mouth of a venomous creature, he would kill it.——The Viper’s Bugloss (Echium vulgare) derives its name from its seed being like the head of a viper, and, according to Matthiolus, was celebrated for curing its bites. Nicander also speaks of the Viper’s Bugloss as one of those plants which cure the biting of serpents, and especially of the viper, and that drive serpents away. Dioscorides, as quoted by Gerarde, writes, “The root drunk with wine is good for those that be bitten with serpents, and it keepeth such from being stung as have drunk of it before: the leaves and seeds do the same.”——Bugloss is reputed to be under the dominion of Jupiter.
BULRUSH.—King Midas, having preferred the singing of Marsyas, the satyr, to that of Apollo, the god clapped upon him a pair of ass’s ears. The king’s barber saw them, and, unable to keep the secret, buried it at the foot of a cluster of Bulrushes. These Reeds, shaken by the wind, continually murmured, “King Midas has ass’s ears.” Both the Scirpus lacustris and Typha latifolia (the Reed Mace) are popularly known as the Bulrush (a corruption of Pole Rush or Pool Rush). The Typha is depicted by Rubens, and the earlier Italian painters, as the Reed put into the hands of Jesus Christ upon His crucifixion. The same Reed is, on certain days, put into the hands of the Roman Catholic statues of our Saviour. Gerarde calls this Reed Cat’s-tail, and points out that Aristophanes makes mention of it in his ‘Comedy of Frogs,’ “where he bringeth them forth, one talking with another, being very glad that they had spent the whole day in skipping and leaping among Galingale and Cat’s-tail.”——The Bulrushes, among which the infant Moses was placed on the banks of the Nile, were Reeds not unlike the Typha. The ark in which he was laid was probably a small canoe constructed with the same Reed—the Papyrus Nilotica, which, according to Egyptian belief, was a protection from crocodiles. Gerarde says: “It is thought by men of great learning and understanding in the Scriptures, and set downe by them for truth, that this plant is the same Reed mentioned in the second chapter of Exodus, whereof was made that basket or cradle, which was daubed within and without with slime of that country, called Bitumen Judaicum, wherein Moses was put, being committed to the water, when Pharaoh gave commandment that all the male children of the Hebrews should be drowned.”——Boats and canoes formed of the Papyrus are common in Abyssinia. In South America, a similar kind of Bulrush is used for a like purpose.——The Bulrush is under the dominion of Saturn.
BURDOCK.—Everyone is acquainted with the prickly burs of the Arctium Lappa, or Burdock, which, by means of their hooks, are apt to cling so tenaciously to the passer-by. There exists an old belief among country lads, that they can catch bats by throwing these burs at them. The plant is also known by the names of Great-bur, Hur-bur, and Clot-bur, and has an ancient reputation for curing rheumatism.——It was under the great leaf of a Burdock that the original Hop-o’-my-Thumb, of nursery-rhyme celebrity, sought refuge from a storm, and was, unfortunately, swallowed, enclosed in the leaf, by a passing hungry cow.——In Albania, there is a superstitious belief that, if a man has been influenced by the demons of the forest, the evil spirit must be exorcised by the priest; a portion of the ceremony consisting of the steeping of bread in wine, and spreading it on the broad leaves of a Burdock.——Venus is the planet under whose rule astrologers place Burdock.
BURITI.—The Buriti Palm (Mauritia vinifera) attains, in Brazil, gigantic proportions, and its rich red and yellow fruit, “like quilted cannon balls,” hang in bunches five feet long. From it flour, wine, and butter are made, whilst the fibre of the leaves supplies thread for weaving, &c. Another species, M. flexuosa, flourishes in the valleys and swamps of South America, where the native Indians regard it with great reverence, living almost entirely on its products; and, what is very remarkable, building their houses high up amongst its leaves, where they live during the floods.
BURNET.—The Burnet Saxifrage (Pimpinella Saxifraga) appears to be considered a magical plant in Hungary, where it is called Châbairje, or Chaba’s Salve, from an old tradition that King Chaba discovered it, and cured the wounds of fifteen thousand of his soldiers after a sanguinary battle fought against his brother.——In a work on astrology, purported to be written by King Solomon, and translated from the Hebrew by Iroé Grego, it is stated that the magician’s sword ought to be steeped in the blood of a mole and in the juice of Pimpinella.——In Piedmont, the Pimpinella is thought to possess the property of increasing the beauty of women.——Burnet is a herb of the Sun.
BUTCHER’S BROOM.—A species of Butcher’s Broom, Ruscus hypoglossum, was the Alexandrian Laurel of the Romans, who formed of this shrub the so-called Laurel crowns worn by distinguished personages. It is the Laurel generally depicted on busts, coins, &c.——The name of Butcher’s Broom was given to this plant because in olden times butchers were in the habit of sweeping their blocks with hand brooms made of its green shoots. In Italy, branches of the plant, tied together, are commonly employed as besoms for sweeping houses; and hucksters place boughs of it round bacon and cheese to defend them from the mice. The Ruscus aculeatus, besides its ordinary name of Butcher’s Broom, is called Knee-holme, Knee-pulver, Knee-holly, Pettigree, and sometimes Jews’ Myrtle, because it is sold to the Jews for use during the Feast of the Tabernacles. In combination with Horse-radish, the plant, boiled for a decoction, is said to be serviceable in cases of dropsy; and its boughs are often used in this country for flogging chilblains.——Butcher’s Broom has been used and claimed by the Earls of Sutherland as the distinguishing badge of their followers and clan. The present Duke retains it, and every Sutherland volunteer still wears a sprig of Butcher’s Broom in his bonnet on field days.——Butcher’s Broom is under the dominion of Mars.
Buttercups.—See [Ranunculus].
CABBAGE.—A Grecian legend recounts that the Cabbage (Brassica) sprang from the tears of Lycurgus, Prince of Thrace, whom Dionysus had bound to a Vine-stock as a punishment for the destruction of Vines of which the Prince had been guilty. Perhaps this ancient legend may account for the belief that the Cabbage, like the Laurel, is inimical to the Vine; and it may also have given rise to the employment by the Egyptians and the Greeks of this vegetable as a most powerful remedy for the intoxication produced by the fruit of the Vine. Bacon, in his Sylva Sylvarum, says: “So the Colewort (Cabbage) is not an enemy (though that were anciently received) to the Vine onely; but it is an enemy to any other plant, because it draweth strongly the fattest juyce of the earth.” He also tells us that “it is reported that the shrub called Our Ladie’s Seal (which is a kinde of Briony) and Coleworts, set neare together, one or both will die.” Gerarde says that the Greeks called the Cabbage Amethustos, “not onely because it driveth away drunkennesse, but also for that it is like in colour to the pretious stone called the Amethyst.”——The ancient Ionians, in their oaths, invoked the Cabbage. Nicander calls the Cabbage a sacred plant.——In Scotland, young women determine the figure and size of their future husbands by drawing Cabbages, blindfolded, on Hallowe’en.——In some country places, the housewife considers it a lucky omen if her Cabbages grow “double,” i.e., with two shoots from one root; or “lucker,” that is, with the leaves spreading open.——A Cabbage stalk or stump is a favourite steed upon which the “good people,” or fairies, are wont to travel in the air. Mr. Croker, in his ‘Fairy Legends of Ireland,’ relates that at Dundaniel, a village near Cork, in a pleasant outlet called Blackrock, there lived not many years ago a gardener named Crowley, who was considered by his neighbours as under fairy control, and suffered from what they termed “the falling sickness” resulting from the fatigue attendant on the journeys which he was compelled to take; being forced to travel night after night with the good people on one of his own Cabbage-stumps.——The Italian expressions, “Go among the Cabbages,” and “Go hide among the Cabbages,” mean to die. In the North, however, children are told that “Baby was fetched out of the Cabbage-bed.”——In Jersey, the Palm Cabbage is much cultivated, and reaches a considerable height. In La Vendée, the Cæsarean Cow Cabbage grows sixteen feet high. Possibly these gigantic Cabbages may have given rise to the nursery tales of some of the continental states, in which the young hero emulates the exploits of the English Jack and his Bean-stalk, by means of a little Cabbage, which grows larger and larger, and finally, becoming colossal, reaches the skies.——In England, there is a nursery legend which relates how the three daughters of a widow were one day sent into the kitchen garden to protect the Cabbages from the ravages of a grey horse which was continually stealing them. Watching their opportunity, they caught him by the mane and would not be shaken off; so the grey horse trotted away to a neighbouring hill, dragging the three girls after him. Arrived at the hill, he commanded it to open, and the widows’ daughters found themselves in an enchanted palace.——A tradition in the Havel country, North Germany, relates that one Christmas Eve a peasant felt a great desire to eat Cabbage, and having none himself, he slipped into a neighbour’s garden to cut some. Just as he had filled his basket, the Christ Child rode past on his white horse, and said: “Because thou hast stolen on the holy night, thou shalt immediately sit in the moon with thy basket of Cabbage.” The culprit was immediately wafted up to the moon, and there, as the man in the moon, he is still undergoing his penalty for stealing Cabbages on Christmas Eve.——To dream of cutting Cabbages denotes jealousy on the part of wife, husband, or lover, as the case may be. To dream of anyone else cutting them portends an attempt by some person to create jealousy in the loved one’s mind. To dream of eating Cabbage implies sickness to loved ones and loss of money.——Cabbages are plants of the Moon.
CACTUS.—The Cacti are for the most part natives of South America, where their weird and grotesque columns or stems, devoid of leaves, dot with green the arid plains of New Barcelona or the dark hillsides of Mexico and California. They often attain the height of fifty feet, and live to such an age as to have gained the name of “imperishable statues.” Standing for centuries, they have been selected to mark national boundaries, as for instance, between the English and French possessions in the Island of St. Christopher, West Indies, and they are also employed as hedges to lanes and roadways. In the arid plains of Mexico and Brazil, the Cacti serve as reservoirs of moisture, and not only the natives, by probing the fleshy stems with their long forest knives, supply themselves with a cool and refreshing juice, but even the parched cattle contrive to break through the skin with their hoofs, and then to suck the liquid they contain. The splendid colours of the Cactus flowers are in vivid contrast with the ugly and ungainly stems.——There are sundry local legends and superstitions about these plants of the desert. A certain one poisons every white spot on a horse, but not one of any other colour. Another, eaten by horses, makes them lazy and imbecile.——The number of known genera is eighteen, and there are