B. B. Woodward.
Notes on Newspapers.—The following may be worth a place among your Notes. I copied it from the Evening Mail (a tri-weekly issue from The Times office), but unfortunately omitted to take the date, and the only authority I can offer is Evening Mail, No. 12,686. p. 8. col. 2. (leader):
"The Times has its share of antiquities. Our office stands upon the foundations of Blackfriars, where for centuries Plantagenets, Yorkists, Lancastrians, and Tudors, held court. We have reason to believe that just about where we sit was heard that famous cause for annulling the marriage of Catherine, which led to the English Reformation. Under these foundations others still older are now open to view. First we have under us the Norman wall of the city, before it was extended westward to give more room to Blackfriars, and under that presents itself the unmistakeable material and composition of the old Roman wall."
Tee Bee.
Queries.
WILD PLANTS AND THEIR NAMES.
In looking over some memoranda, I find the following Queries entered; and, as it is more than probable that some of the readers of "N. & Q." who take an interest in our wild flowers, and love the simple, homely names which were given them by our fathers, will easily solve them, I send them for insertion:
1. Capsella, Bursa pastoris, "Shepherd's Purse." Why was this plant called "St. James's Wort;" French, "Fleur de St. Jacques?" Was it used in medicine? Its old name, "Poor Man's Parmacetic," would imply that it was.