The sailing pine was doubtless so called on account of it being so largely used for the masts of ships. The wood of the aspen tree was often used for making staves on account of its toughness. He alludes also to the ancient use of the cypress at funeral rites, and the wearing of the willow as a badge of the unfortunate; the yew, chiefly employed for making the long bows; the birch, for the strongest arrows; and the sallow, which when plaited formed the sails of the windmills. Incisions are cut in the bark of the myrrh tree in order that the gum should exude as from an open wound. Beech was used for the shafts of spears and axes, and the carver holm or cutting holly was so called from its prickles. In the sixth canto we have mention of the flower-de-luce:— “The lily, lady of the flowering field, The flow’r-de-luce her lovely paramour”.[42] Flower-de-luce was the old name for the iris, and is also the French _fleur-de-lis_, and the origin of that symbol. The roots of many of the iris species have long been used in medicine for their cathartic and emetic properties. That of the _I. florentina_ is well known for its sweet violet smell, and from early times has been employed to sweeten the breath and as an ingredient in tooth powders. Another old name for this plant was “The flower of delights”. [42] _The Faerie Queen_, book ii., canto vi. In the seventh canto the poet shows he was well acquainted with some medicinal plants, and gives us quite a group of “herbs of ill favour”. “There mournful cypress grew in greatest store; And trees of bitter gall; and ebon sad; Dead sleeping poppy, and black hellebore; Cold coloquintida, and tetra mad; Mortal samnitis; and cicuta bad, With which th’ unjust Athenians made to die Wise Socrates, who, thereof quaffing glad, Pour’d out his life and last philosophy To the fair Critias, his dearest belamy!”[43] Here we have mention of the narcotic poppy and the black hellebore, a drastic purgative with which tradition states Melampus, the great soothsayer and physician, cured the daughters of Prœtus, King of Argos, of madness. Also the colocynth or bitter apple; tetra mad, an old name for the belladonna or deadly nightshade; savin, here called mortal samnitis, a plant possessing powerful properties, used in medicine from the time of the Romans; and the cicuta or hemlock, which formed the active ingredient in the poison cup of the Greeks. [43] _The Faerie Queen_, book ii., canto vii. In the _Shepherd’s Calendar_ we have another allusion to the black hellebore:— “Here grows melampode ev’rywhere, And terebinth, good for goats; The one my madding kids to smear, The next to heal their throats”.[44] The ancient name for hellebore was melampus root, hence the name melampode, which doubtless arose from the old tradition. By terebinth the poet probably means one of the species of pine from which turpentine is obtained.