Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/310

 254

NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vi. SEZT. 28, 1912.

a Malet married a Robsert. I should be glad to know of any history of this Robsert family, or where I should be likely to find out more about the Malets, and the bearer of the chaplet in the fourth quarter of the Robsert banner. H. I. HALL.

22, Hyde Park Gate, S.W.

BEST COMPANY CONSISTS OF FIVE PERSONS (11 S. i. 367, 433). At the first place in- dicated C. B. W. referred to Steele's remark in The Tatler, No. 132, " the best company is said to consist of five persons," and added, " I can find no proverb from which he is quoting." As no other instance of the sentiment in English has been given by ' N. & Q.,' the following may deserve to be recorded :

" King Charles II. having given a commission to a gentleman to raise a company of souldiers, and meeting him by chance a little after, asked him how many he had got ? The gentleman answered, ' But five, if it please your majesty.' The king replyed, ' Then be sure you keep them ; for five is the best company in the world ' : alluding to a merry company, which consists better of five than any other number." 'Reliquiae Hearnianre,' 2nd ed., i. 128.

The date in Hearne's diary is 13 June, 1707- EDWARD BENSLY.

PLANTS IN POETRY : IDENTIFICATION SOUGHT (US. vi. 191). The plant described by Longfellow in ' Evangeline,'

Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the meadow, &c.,

is Silphium laciniatum, or the compass plant. It is a vigorous sunflower-like perennial, with a stout stem, often 8 ft. in height, and fine yellow-coloured flowers on drooping heads, which have the peculi- arity of facing the east. It has large, divided leaves, which stand vertically ; the radical ones especially are disposed to place themselves north and south, whence the name. It is common on the Western prairies of North America, and is also called "rosin- weed." Vide W. Robinson's 'Eng- lish Flower Garden ' and ' The Century Encyclopaedic Dictionary.'

I have also just seen the plant in flower in the Botanic Garden at Cambridge. It is about 8 ft. high, most of the flowers face the east, and the leaves point approxi- mately north and south.

In one edition of ' Evangeline ' which I have seen the word " vigorous " is sub- stituted for " delicate " in the line quoted above ; and it certainly would seem to be a more appropriate epithet for a plant 8 ft. high. M. A. C.

The quotation answers the query. The plant referred to is the cotnpass plant (Silphium laciniatum), a composite shrub found in the prairies of North America. It is remarkable by reason of the twisting of its leaf -blades, the apex and profile being turned north and south, the surfaces facing east and west, thus avoiding the midday heat while receiving full benefit of the sun- beams in the relatively damp morning and evening. This singular characteristic so regularly obtains that hunters guide them- selves by the plant, even under a clouded sky. Lactuca scariola, one of the same family, and the supposed original of our common lettuce, behaves in the same manner. It is curious, however, that when these plants grow in a shady or damp place their leaves do not twist.

WILLIAM GILBERT.

35, Broad Street Avenue, B.C.

The compass plant, also known as the pilot-weed and the polar and rosin plant the Silphium laciniatum of the botanists of which Dr. Asa Gray writes :

" On the wide open prairies the leaves are said to present their faces uniformly north and south, whence it is called the compass plant."

There is an unmistakable northern tendency in the leaves when they first come up, and until they are large and heavy. When winds and rain bear them in different directions, they evidently have not the power of regain- ing the points lost. So it depends upon the season when the observation is made whether the leaves are seen to be northwards or not. TOM JONES.

SNAKE POISON (11 S. v. 388, 465; vi. 75). Trigonocephalus Bromhoffii is a very poi- sonous snake, called habi or mamushi in Japan, and fuh-shie in China. According to Dr. O. F. von MoUendorrT, it inhabits Formosa and Mongolia as welt (Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, xi. 104 ; Shang- hai, 1877). In Li Shi-Chin's ' Pan-tsau- kang-muh,' or ' System of Materia Medica,' which was completed in A.D. 1578, and is the greatest work of the kind China lias ever produced, we read :

" The flesh of the fuh-shie is sweet, warm, and poisonous. Put one live fuh-shie in one tau [about ten litres] of purest wine and seal it up. Bury the preparation under ground which horses frequent to urinate. Disinter it just after one year, when you will find the snake entirely dissolved in the liquor, now decreased to only one-tenth of the original quantity. This solution is the best medicine for leprosy. As the disease is the effect of the principal venom of heaven