Flora's Lexicon/Bryony
RYONY. Bryonea Dioicia. Class 21, Monœcia. Order: Triandria. The name Bryony, and the botanical one, Bryonea, are derived from a Greek word meaning to push
forth, or grow rapidly. The root grows to an enormous size; in former times of ignorance and superstition, cunning impostors made use of it in their pretended miraculous doings, and sometimes artfully contrived to make the root grow sufficiently like the human figure to be supposed a magical resemblance. They effected this by placing a mould of the shape required round the roots of a healthy young Bryony plant, fastened with wires; and such is the rapid growth of the root, that the image would be formed in one summer.
PROSPERITY.
The slender Bryony that weaves
His pale green. flowers and glossy leaves
Aloft in smooth and lithe festoons;
And crown’d compact with yellow cones,
’Mid purple petals dropp’d with green,
The woody nightshade climbs between.
His pale green. flowers and glossy leaves
Aloft in smooth and lithe festoons;
And crown’d compact with yellow cones,
’Mid purple petals dropp’d with green,
The woody nightshade climbs between.
Mant.
Nightshade’s purple flowers,
Hanging so sleepily their turban’d heads,
Rested upon the hedge; and Bryony,
So lavish of its vinelike growth, o’erhung
And canopied the flowers; while soften’d gleams
Of sunlight, falling through the leafy screen,
Shed a faint emerald tinge upon them all.
Hanging so sleepily their turban’d heads,
Rested upon the hedge; and Bryony,
So lavish of its vinelike growth, o’erhung
And canopied the flowers; while soften’d gleams
Of sunlight, falling through the leafy screen,
Shed a faint emerald tinge upon them all.
Twamley.
Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear;
But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.
But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.
Webster