Although the Devil extends his authority over so many plants, it is satisfactory to know that the St. John’s Wort is a dispeller of demons (_Fuga dæmonum_), and that there is in Russia a plant called the Devil-chaser. Prof. De Gubernatis tells us that he has received from the Princess Galitzin Prazorova the following particulars of this plant, which is known as _Certagon_. It grows in meads and woods, is somewhat thorny, and bears a deep-blue flower. It protects infants from fright, and drives away the Devil. Sometimes the plant is boiled in water, and the children are bathed in it. At other times the plant is merely placed in the cradle. If mourners are prostrated with grief and the recollection of the departed one (which is simply a visitation of the Devil) it is only necessary to hold up a sprig of the mystic _Certagon_, when the excessive grief will be assuaged, and the Devil will be compelled to flee. The best way to exorcise an evil spirit from the dead is to sit on the pall, to chew some seeds of Camphor while combing the hair of the corpse, and finally to wave aloft the _Certagon_--the Devil-chaser. Noxious, Deadly, and Ill-Omened Plants. Prof. De Gubernatis remarks that “there are good and bad herbs, and good and bad plants: the good are the work of Ormuzd, the bad the work of Ahriman.” All these bad herbs, plants, and trees, noxious, poisonous, and deadly--the dangerous classes in the vegetable kingdom--are of evil augury, and belong to the category of Plants of the Devil. There are many trees and plants which emit emanations highly injurious, and in some cases fatal to life. Perhaps the most notorious of these is the deadly Upas, which rises in the ‘Valley of Death’ in Java, where it is said to blight all neighbouring vegetation, and to cause the very birds that approach it in their flight to drop down lifeless. No animal can live where its baneful influence extends, and no man durst approach its pestilential shade. The _Strychnos Tienté_ is the plant which yields the Upas Tienté, one of the Javanese poisons; it contains strychnia, and is as deadly as strychnine itself. The _Upas Antiar_ is another Javanese poison--a bitter, milky juice, which acts violently on the heart. The noxious exudations of the Manchineel-tree are said to cause certain death to those who rashly sleep beneath its foliage. The wonderfully fragrant blossoms of the _Magnolia grandiflora_ emit so strong a perfume that, when inhaled in the immediate neighbourhood of a group in flower, it becomes overpowering. The Indians will never sleep under Magnolia in blossom. Linnæus has mentioned a case in which the odour of the Oleander, or Rose-bay (_Nerium Oleander_), proved fatal. The foliage and flowers of this shrub will exercise a deadly influence on many quadrupeds: hence it is called in India the Horse-killer, and in Italy, Ass-bane.