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EUROPEAN VERVAIN (V. officinalis) HERB-OF-THE-CROSS, BERBINE,
HOLY-HERB, ENCHANTER'S PLANT, JUNO'S TEARS, PIGEON-GRASS,
LIGHTNING PLANT, SIMPLER'S JOY, and so on through a long list of
popular names for the most part testifying to the plant's virtue
as a love-philter, bridal token, and general cure-all, has now
become naturalized from the Old World on the Atlantic and Pacific
Slopes; and is rapidly appropriating waste arid cultivated ground
until, in many places, it is truly troublesome. In general habit
like the blue vervain, its flowers are more purplish than blue,
and are scattered, not crowded, along the spikes. The leaves are
deeply, but less acutely, cut.
Ages before Christians ascribed healing virtues to the vervain -
found growing on Mount Calvary, and therefore possessing every
sort of miraculous power, according to the logic of simple
peasant folk - the Druids had counted it among their sacred
plants. "When the dog-star arose from unsunned spots" the priests
gathered it.


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