Woodsorrel
That this trefoil is the shamrock which excited the devotional feelings of St. Patrick when he landed in Ireland, is shown by the fact that one of the names for it throughout the west of Europe, in Italy, Spain, France, as well as England, is Allelujah. This name was corrupted in Italy and in England into Lujula; in the south of Italy it was corrupted either from or into Giuliola, and in France it appears as Julienne, whence the name of the well-known soup. The woodsorrel (oxalis acetosella), is now little used in cookery-being replaced by the more abundant, but also less delicate dock or common sorrel, which as a Rumex belongs to a different family. See the chapter on Julienne.
WORMWOOD was a good deal used in England to flavour and to preserve beer, before hops were known. Hops were introduced in 1524, and encountered much opposition-a petition having been presented to Parliament, in 1528, in which they are called "a wicked weed." They prevailed, however; and wormwood went gradually out of use in this country, notwithstanding the supposed virtue which its name indicates. There are three related shrubs-wormwood, southernwood, and tarragon (Artemisia Absinthium, Artemisia Abrotanum, and Artemisia Dracunculus)-all more or less narcotic. Now, here is an odd thing: that whereas tarragon is still much used in diet, though it has never pretended to any remarkable virtues beyond its fine flavour, its friends of greater pretensions-wormwood, renowned as a vermifuge, and southernwood, which in the form of southernwood tea was much drunk by women to prevent hysteria and other feminine maladies-in England, at least, passed almost entirely out of common account, and are cared for only by herbalists and druggists. On the Yorkshire Pie Continent, however, the distillers have seized upon them, and continue to proclaim their renown in the two liqueurs -Absinthe and Vermouth.