’Twill surely rain—we see’t with sorrow,
No working in the fields to-morrow.”
Besides being a barometrical, the Pimpernel is a horological, plant, opening its petals about 7 a.m., and closing them about 2 p.m. The plant was also considered a surgical plant, inasmuch as the old herbalists ascribed to it the power of drawing out arrows which were embedded in the flesh, as well as thorns and splinters, or “other such like things.” The bruised leaves were believed to cure persons bitten by mad dogs, and the juices of the plant were considered efficacious in complaints of the eyes, and in hypochondriacal cases. Its manifold virtues have passed into a proverb:—
“No ear hath heard, no tongue can tell,
The virtues of the Pimpernell.”
Pliny records that sheep avoided the blue, and ate the scarlet, Pimpernel, and that if, by mistake, they ate the blue, they immediately sought for a plant which is now unknown. In Dyer’s ‘English Folk Lore,’ it is stated that, according to a MS. on magic, preserved in the Chetham Library, Manchester, “the herb Pimpernell is good to prevent witchcraft, as Mother Bumby doth affirme.” The following lines may be used when it is gathered:—
“Herbe Pimpernell, I have thee found,
Growing upon Christ Jesus’ ground:
The same guift the Lord Jesus gave unto thee,
When He shed His blood on the tree.