[402] “Convivial” plant. Desfontaines identifies it with the Areca catechu, which is chewed in India for the benefit of the teeth and stomach, and as a sweetener of the breath.
[403] “Brother” plant.
[404] “Bride of Dionysus or Bacchus.”
[405] “Sun-flower.” Not the plant, however, known to us by that name.
[406] “Beauty of the sun,” apparently.
[407] “Mixture of Hermes,” apparently.
[408] Previously mentioned in this Chapter.
[409] As Fée remarks, it has been a notion in comparatively recent times, that it is possible to procreate children of either sex at pleasure.
[410] The “bashful” plant. An Acacia, Fée thinks; see B. xiii. c. 19. The Mimosa casta, pudica, and sensitiva, have similar properties: the Sensitive Plant is well known in this country.
[411] Fée queries whether this may not be the Silene muscipula of Linnæus, the fly-trap.