“Who Bugle and Sanicle hath
May safely at the surgeons laugh.”
In England, it was in former days called Self-heal, for according to one old herbalist, it would “make whole and sound all wounds and hurts, both inward and outward.”——Sanicle is held to be under the rule of Venus.
SARDEA.—It is considered that the Sium latifolium is the plant known by the ancients as Sardea, which was supposed to grow in Sardinia, and which possessed the singular power of provoking sardonic laughter. Sallust speaks of this mystic plant as resembling Celery.
SATYRION.—The appellation of Satyrion (from the Greek Saturos, a Satyr) is applied to several species of Orchis, from their reputed aphrodisiac character. The Romans believed that the roots of these plants formed the food of the Satyrs, and, on account of its exciting nature, prompted them to commit those excesses which were one of their characteristics.——In Gerarde’s ‘Herbal,’ we read that most of these plants were used for the purpose of exciting the amatory passions: some of them were called Serapiades, because “sundry of them do bring forth floures resembling flies and such like fruitful and lascivious insects, as taking their name from Serapias [Serapis], the god of the citizens of Alexandria, in Egypt, who had a most famous temple at Canopus, where he was worshipped with all kinds of lascivious wantonnesse, songs and dances.” Turner says of the roots of Satyrion, that all the species have a double root, which alter every year, “when one waxeth full, the other perisheth and groweth lank.” The full root, he says, powerfully excites the passions, but the lank ones have exactly the opposite effect.——Astronomers place Satyrion under the rule of Venus.
SAVIN.—The Savin (Juniperus Sabina), in some parts of Italy, is held in great abhorrence as a plant of evil repute: it is called the “Devil’s-tree,” and the “Magician’s Cypress,” on account of the great use of it made in olden times by sorcerers and witches when working their spells.——Savin is reputed by astrologers to be a herb of Mars.
SAVORY.—Savory or Satureia was considered by the ancients as a herb belonging to the Satyrs; hence matrons were specially warned to have nothing to do with it, as the plant was supposed to have disastrous effects on those about to become mothers.——Savory is held to be under the dominion of Mercury.
SAXIFRAGE.—Of the genus Saxifraga, twenty species are indigenous to Great Britain. In olden times, it was noticed that these plants split rocks by growing in their cracks, so, on the doctrine of signatures, certain of the species were supposed to be efficacious in cases of calculus, and were indeed highly esteemed on that account by the Roman physicians. In England, the name Breakstone was bestowed on them for the same reason; the plants most employed by the herbalists being the Meadow Saxifrage, or Mead Parsley, the White Saxifrage, and the Burnet Saxifrage.
To this family of plants belongs S. umbrosa, the familiar London Pride, known also by the names of None-so-pretty, Prattling Parnell, and St. Patrick’s Cabbage (from its growing in the West of Ireland).——Astrologers state that the Moon governs the Saxifrages.
Scorpion Grass.—See [Forget-me-Not].