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CHAPTER XXVIII
MOSSES AND MOORS

Peat-mosses and their birds – Moorlands – Cotton-grass – Scotch whisky – Growth of peat-moss – A vegetable pump – Low-lying and moorland mosses – Eruptions and floods of peat – Colonizing by heather and Scotch fir – Peat-mosses as museums – Remains of children and troopers – Irish elk – Story of the plants in Denmark – Rhododendrons and peat – Uses of peat – Reclaiming the mosses near Glasgow.

IN Great Britain in this present year one finds exceedingly few places where the influence of man cannot be traced. Over most of the country, indeed, it is impossible to discover a single acre of land where Nature has been allowed to go on working at her own sweet will without interference or restraint.

But near Stirling, between the Lake of Monteith and the sea, there is a wide, desolate valley which is probably in exactly the same condition as it was when the Roman legions halted to reconnoitre before Agricola passed onwards to Perth and Aberdeen.

Indeed, this great peat-moss has been probably in very much the same condition for some 200,000 years, which is a nice round number to represent the ages that have passed since the Great Ice Age.

Now, as then, it is inexpressibly dreary and desolate; everywhere saturated with water, and only to be traversed in dry seasons and with much agility. Even with the greatest care the pedestrian may sink to the waist in a hole of black, slimy, peaty water. Moss, Heather clumps, Sedges, Rushes, and occasionally Cotton-grass, almost at one dead level, stretch right across from the one side of the huge valley to the other.

Even grouse are not common. In summer great numbers of gulls lay their eggs upon the moss. This also is one of the few places in Britain where great flocks of wild geese can be heard and seen, but only at a distance.

It is almost impossible to get near them, for the upright neck of the sentinel cannot be seen by the stalker as he wriggles towards the flock on his face, until long after the stalker himself has been plainly visible to the bird.

Of all useless stretches of barren waste, such a moss as this seems one of the worst. It would, of course, be possible to reclaim it; probably, fertile fields and rich meadows could be formed over the whole valley, but it would not pay nowadays. There is so much good land available in Canada, the United States, and Australia, that this great stretch of our native country will probably remain as useless as it was in Agricola's days.

In the Scottish Lowlands and Highlands the moorlands are almost as desolate. At a height of 1500 to 1600 feet in Southern Scotland there is nothing to be seen but the undulating lines of hills, all dark purple with heather or with the peculiar scorched reddish green of Deer's Hair and dried sedges.

Perhaps on the nearer hills small streams may have cut a whole series of intersecting ravines in the black peat. They may be six to ten feet deep, and here and there the bleached white stones which underlie them are exposed. Now and then the "kuk-kuk-kuk" of an irate cock grouse, and much too frequently the melancholy squawking of the curlew, irritates the pedestrian as he stumbles over clumps of heather, plunges in and out of the mossy holes, or circumvents impossible peat-haggs.

It is indeed a remarkable fact that though these islands support 44,000,000 of inhabitants, including at least 1,000,000 paupers and unemployed, one-seventh of Ireland and many square miles in Scotland are still useless peat-bogs!

The Bog of Allen alone covers 238,500 acres, and the peat is twenty-five feet deep.

In some few places the peat is still used for fuel, and there is a theory to the effect that peat reek is necessary for the best kinds of Scotch whisky, but neither grouse nor black-faced sheep, which live on the young shoots of the heather, employ in at all a satisfactory way these great stretches of land.

Many attempts have been made to spin the silky threads of the Cotton-grass which grows abundantly on the Scotch lowlands. It is neither a grass, nor does it supply cotton, but is called Eriophorum. It is perhaps the one really beautiful plant to be found on them, for its waving heads of fine silky-white hairs are exceedingly pretty.

The heather itself gives a splendid red and purple shade, which in summer and autumn is always changing colour, but it is monotonous. Neither the little Bog Asphodel with its yellowish flowers, nor red Drosera, or butter-coloured Butterwort, are particularly beautiful.

After seeing such a country one understands something of the Cameronian Covenanters who held their conventicles and took refuge therein.

The manner in which these mosses and moors have developed is most interesting, and yet difficult to explain.

There are two kinds of peat-mosses, which, although there are many intermediate types, may be kept apart.

The first, like the one near Stirling, Lochar and Solway Moss, near Dumfries, and Linwood, near Glasgow, have been formed in low-lying flat estuarine marshes.

If one refers back to page 210, it will be seen how reeds and rushes and marsh plants may gradually fill up river backwaters. Eventually a saturated, marshy meadow is produced.

Then comes the chance of that wonderful moss the peat-moss, or Sphagnum. It is scarcely possible to appreciate its structure without the help of a microscope and a good deal of trouble in the way of imagination.

It is in a small way a sort of vegetable pump which raises water a few inches or so. Stem and leaves and branches possess little cistern cells, which act both as capillary tubes raising the water and also retain it. The stems are upright and develop many branches, so that they become a close-ranked or serried carpet of upright moss-stems squeezed together, which floats on the surface of the water. Each moss-stem is growing upwards and dying off below. In consequence, the bottom gets filled up by dead mossy pieces, which accumulate there, while the live moss-carpet remains floating on the surface of the loathly, black, peaty water.

In many peat-mosses the water gets entirely filled up, but that does not stop the formation of the peat-moss. It is now resting on the water-saturated remains of its forefathers, and if water is abundantly supplied it goes on developing.

Thus in these lowland or estuarine peat-mosses the moss eventually occupies the water, and goes on growing. After this it develops like the moorland mosses which cover most of the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland. They cover the hills, and it looks exactly as if some giant had plastered all those hills with a layer of six to ten feet of black peat from 1250 feet upwards.

The soil would at first be covered by a saturated moss-carpet of Sphagnum and other mosses. Rainwater falling upon it was all retained, and very little could get away, for the Sphagnum carpet is just like a huge sponge soaking up and retaining the water.

But it sometimes happens in these great upland mosses that there are enormous falls of rain which continue for days. Then the water collects under the living moss-carpet and over the dead peat. It may be gathered together in such quantities that the carpet of living peat above it bursts, and a deluge of peaty water overflows the surrounding country, destroying and spoiling everything that it encounters.

The worst of these inundations of black mud that has happened in recent years was in December, 1896, near Rathmore, where 200 acres of bog burst and a horrible river of mud overflowed the country for ten miles. Nine people perished, and enormous destruction was caused.

There have been many other cases. In 1824 Crowhill Bog, near Keighley, burst; and in 1745, in Lancashire, a space a mile long and half a mile broad was covered by peaty mud. There was also a case in 1697, where forty acres of bog at Charleville burst in the same way.¹⁵⁴

Attempts have often been made to calculate the rate of growth of such peat-mosses. A great many of them began to develop on the mud left by the ice-sheet when the glaciers retreated at the end of the Ice Age. Those mosses are therefore probably 200,000 years old. Some of our Scotch mosses are twenty to twenty-five feet in depth, which gives a foot in 10,000 years. By calculation of the weight of the peat formed, Aigner made out that a certain moss was 20,600 years old, and was growing at the rate of two inches in a century.

But in Denmark ten feet has been formed in 250 to 300 years, and in Switzerland three to four feet of peat-moss has been formed in twenty-four years.

This shows quite distinctly that there is no regular rate of growth, and indeed it is obvious that much must depend on the climate, on the rainfall, on the drainage, and other circumstances.

Sooner or later, however, a limit comes to the growth of the moss. The surface then becomes gently curved: it is highest in the centre, and slopes very gently down in every direction to the edges.

What happens next? The first sign is that the surface begins to dry up, and Heather, with grey Cladonia lichens, begins to grow on the projecting tufts and tussocks.

Occasionally, if gulls build their nests on such drying-up mosses, patches of bright green grass appear wherever the gulls are in the habit of resting. That is due to the lime in their guano.

But under quite natural conditions a much more important and interesting change begins.

Here and there scattered over the moss, miserable little seedling Birches and Scotch Firs begin to struggle for life. Of course, if there are hares and rabbits, or if sheep and cattle are allowed to graze upon the moss, those firs have no chance whatever. They are eaten down to the ground.

But if allowed to go on growing they would no doubt cover the whole moss with a wood of Birch and Scotch Fir. In time that wood would by its roots and its formation of fine leaf-mould so radically alter the ground that a forest of Oaks might be possible.

It is in fact quite likely that most of our Highland and Scotch hills were at one time covered by fine forests of Scotch Fir, of which the Silva Caledonica spoken of by Tacitus was an example.

There is, moreover, evidence to show that this was the case. There is one strange peculiarity of peat which renders it a most useful substance to antiquarians.

Anything lost in a peat-moss does not decay away, but remains in a blackened but still recognizable condition for hundreds of years. Not long ago a basket containing the bones of a child was found in a Scotch peat-moss. There is also a story that an English trooper of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and his horse, were discovered in Lochar Moss, near Dumfries. The man's features were traceable at first, but fell into powder when exposed to the air; but the weapons, stirrups, etc., were all perfectly preserved. Bones of the extinct Irish elk have often been found. Not merely so, but the piles of lake dwellings and the rough dug-out canoes which were used by the early inhabitants of Britain have been discovered in a great many places. Coins of Roman, medieval, and modern times have been unearthed, and indeed there is no doubt that if Britain is still inhabited two thousand years hence, boots, sardine tins, brass cartridges, clay pipes, and other characteristic products of our own days, will be disentombed from the peat by enthusiastic antiquarians, and displayed in museums to admiring crowds of our descendants.

The reason is quite simple: in peat neither those bacteria which cause ordinary decomposition, nor worms of any kind, are able to exist, so that the material does not decay but accumulates, though it may be blackened by peat, water, and humic acid. It is for this reason that a peat-moss is such a bad or rather an impossible soil. Neither roots nor bacteria can thrive in saturated peat; therefore the flora of a peat-moss is generally confined to the upper surface, where air and bacteria can reach the roots. Peat-mosses are also the home of insectivorous plants, which get their nitrogenous food from the insects which they catch.

In consequence of this preserving effect of peat, it is possible to trace the entire history of a peat-moss from the very beginning. Remains of the Dwarf Willow or Polar Birch have been found in England, showing that those now Arctic plants were then flourishing in Norfolk. These are generally in the lowest layers of peat-mosses. Next follow remains of the Birch and Aspen, which would be growing, as they do in places to-day, on mossy soil where the peat was still thin. Higher up in the peat one finds remains of Scotch Fir, showing that at that time regular forests of Scotch Fir existed, e.g. in Sutherlandshire and on Lochar Moss, where they do not grow at present.

Some hold that the goats, black cattle, and ponies which have been kept since the Roman occupation at any rate, are responsible for the destruction of these forests. Others hold that they were killed by a change of climate. But they certainly existed.

Trunks of Scotch Fir have even been found in peat at 2400 feet in Yorkshire, and at heights in Scotland which are above all the present plantations. About this time it seems that the newer Stone Age men must have been in Switzerland and Denmark, for their remains and characteristic weapons occur in those countries at the same level in the mosses as the Scotch Fir.

Still higher in the peat comes the Bog Oak. With it are in Denmark remains of the Bronze, Iron, and Roman times.

In Denmark the uppermost layers of the peat contain remains of Beech trees. As this last tree only entered the country in the historic period, it is not found except in the highest layers of all.

Unfortunately we have not yet obtained in our own country the same evidence from the peat-bogs as to the history of the flora of Britain. It is at least probable that it was on very much the same lines.

Would it be possible to again cover our peat-mosses and moorlands with forests of Conifers, Pines, Larches, and Spruces? There can scarcely be any doubt about it: it would be possible, and according to the best authorities it would even pay to change all land which is not yielding more than 7s. 6d. an acre into forests of Pines.

One of the curious facts about peat is that though a peat-moss is one of the worst natural soils, yet broken-up and dried peat is excellent for Rhododendrons, for Orchids in stoves and greenhouses, and a great many other plants.

Peat consists of very much the same substances as those that go to form leaf-mould. But the presence of humic and other acids, and the saturation with water and consequently the absence of worms, bacteria, and also of air, make it impossible for plants to grow in a peat-moss.

Peat-moss due specially to the Cotton-grass rather than the Sphagnum moss is imported in great quantity from Holland, for use as litter for horses. We have in this country plenty of peat quite good for this purpose, but labour is too expensive for our home-grown peat to compete with the produce of Dutch moors.

But that is by no means all the uses to which peat can be put. It is interesting to mention a few of them.

1. Peat is used as fuel.

2. Growing Orchids, etc.

3. Litter for poultry, cattle, and horses.

4. Food for cattle, etc., is made by rubbing the peat into small pieces and saturating with molasses.

5. Paper and a kind of felt can be made of peat.

6. Rugs and carpets can be made of peat-fibre.

7. String and twine.

8. Rough sacks and mats can be made of peat-fibre.

Unfortunately, though all these things can be produced out of peat-fibre, it has never paid to manufacture them, and there are very few of the British peat-mosses nowadays where peat is even cut for fuel.

It seems much more likely that the end of these peat-mosses will be to become either agricultural land or forest.

Near Glasgow a large area of a useless peat-moss has been reclaimed and made to yield excellent crops, by using the refuse of the city. The disposal of such refuse used to be a most troublesome and expensive process, but now it is turned to good effect.

It was suggested a few years ago that peat, which is not worth conveyance, should be burnt on the spot, and the energy transmitted by wires.

That would be quite impossible, in at least four years out of five, over most of Scotland.

CHAPTER XXIX
NAMES AND SUPERSTITIONS

Giving names the first amusement – Curious and odd names – A spiteful naturalist – The melancholy Bartzia – Common names – British orchids – Dancing girls and columbines – Susans – Biblical names – Almond, apple, locust – Spikenard – Tares – Effects of darnel – Daffodil – Acanthus leaf – Ghost-disturbing branches – Elder or bour tree – Its powers and medicinal advantage – Danewort – Mandrake – How to pull it up – The insane root – Its properties – Plants which make bones pink – The betel nut – Henna – Egyptian and Persian uses – Castor oil – Leeks, onions, and garlic – Ancient use of them.

MAN has always taken a certain pleasure in giving names to both plants and animals. It was, of course, a necessity to do this, but it is probable that people enjoyed the process as they do now.

At the present moment there must be at least 200,000 plants named and described by botanists. So that the number of ecstatic moments enjoyed by humanity has been undoubtedly increased.

The Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Arabs named a great many plants, but for the most part those names are quite lost. Most of the knowledge of the Egyptians and Babylonians remained a close secret confined to their priestly colleges or universities, and has entirely perished.

For centuries those fragments of the knowledge of Greece and Egypt which were preserved seem to have been translated and taught in Latin. Long after the Roman Empire had passed away, all knowledge, including that of medicine, of botany, and of law, was imparted in Latin, which indeed was supposed to be learnt by every educated person almost until the present century.

Even now descriptions of new plants have to be given in Latin, and the name must have a classical appearance. Of course, nowadays, it would be much more convenient and much more generally useful if every person learnt English, German, French, and Japanese, but in this case of naming plants, the Holy Roman Empire still exercises its sway over the whole world.

Very often the names given to plants are of the most extraordinary character. The Latin is curious and the Greek remarkable, yet sometimes they are both pleasant to the ear and have a pretty and poetical meaning.

Poggeophyton, on the other hand, for example, means the plant discovered by Dr. Pogge, a German botanical explorer. Wormskioldia, Zahlbrucknera, Krascheninikowia, Acanthosicyos, Chickrassia, Orychophragmus, Warczewiczia, Lychnophoriopsis, Krombholtzia, Pseudorhachicallis, Sczegleewia, Zschokkia, are all names that sound harsh and look odd to us. Yet most of them are just called after those who discovered them, or their friends. In many of the smaller microscopic plants the names are really much longer than the plants themselves. Thus Pseudocerataulus Kinkeri is a diatom which cannot possibly be seen without the use of a microscope.

Names are and were given in the most extraordinary way. Not merely great botanists, but Themistocles, Aristides, Aristobulus, Virgil, and even Gyas and Clianthes, have plants named after them.

Yet that is not inexcusable, if people had not sufficient inventive power to do better. There was a naturalist who quarrelled with the great French scientist Buffon. Therefore he baptized as Buffonia a group of ugly, unimportant little plants which had an unpleasant smell. In other cases people have named plants after their sweethearts or friends.

A British plant called Bartzia has a rather melancholy, desolate appearance. It was named when the author had just received the news of the death of his friend Dr. Bartsch.

One of the most usual complaints which one hears from those who are beginning to study flowers is that the Latin names are so difficult and hard to remember. But they are not really more difficult than the common popular names, and especially those of foreign plants. Cheirostemon, for instance, which means stamens like a hand, is much easier to speak and to remember than Macpalxochitlquahuitl, which is its soft, meandering, Spanish-American name. Asperula (little rough one) is quite as good as Squinancywort, which means a herb good for quinsy (it is moreover of no good in quinsy). Perhaps, however, Woodruff (which is really "wood rowel," from the resemblance of the leaves to an old-fashioned spur), or Waldmeister (master of the woods), are as good names as Asperula. Then Erigeron, which means "soon growing old," is an excellent description of the faded appearance of this little weed, for which the popular name is Fleabane (it has no effect upon these creatures whatsoever).

How popular names came to be associated with particular flowers is generally quite unknown. A fair number are called from the diseases which they are supposed to cure. Lungwort, however, was so called because the lichen Pulmonaria has a resemblance to lungs. Then in course of time people began to suppose it was a cure for diseases of the lungs, which it is not.

The British Orchids are called Bee, Spider, Fly, and Hanging-man Orchids, because of a fancied resemblance to their namesakes. Dancing-girls (Mantisia) was so called from a certain resemblance of the flower to a columbine. The true Columbine (Aquilegia) was so called because of a resemblance which some one saw to a circle of little doves with wings seated on a circular well.

The greatest objection to popular names, however, lies in their being so indefinite. Entirely different plants are known by the same name, and also in different parts of the country totally different names are given to the same plant. All such difficulties disappear if one takes the trouble to learn the Latin names.

These also are often quite pretty. Luzula, Veronica (with its pretty legend), Mimulus (the little monkey), Circæa (Enchanter's Nightshade), Senecio (the old man, from its woolly head of fruits), Nymphea, Naias, Carlina (the old witch), and so on, are quite as pretty and as nice as Mugwort, Devil-in-a-bush, Hairy Rock Cress, and the rest. One curious result of the use of popular names is seen in the Biblical names of plants. The Rose of Sharon seems most probably to have been Narcissus Tarzetta, and not a rose at all. As regards the lilies of the Field, Mr. Ridley has the following remarks. The Hebrew word Shushan was a generic name given to a mixture of flowers, exactly as we now talk of ferns, herbs, or grass. The Sermon on the Mount was preached near the plain of Gennesaret, and there flourish the Anemone (Anemone coronaria), Ranunculus asiaticus, and Adonis aestivalis and flammea, which are exactly of the same colour and follow each other in close succession. This word Shushan is the original of the Christian name Susannah or Susan. The Arabic name for Anemone coronaria is Susan.

The Almond of the Bible is the common almond which is wild in Syria and Palestine. "Aaron's rod that budded was a branch of an almond tree; the bowls of the Golden Candlestick were designed from the almond blossom. Even at the present time English workmen call the glass drops for ornamenting candlesticks almonds." The Apple of the Bible was more probably an Apricot. The husks of the prodigal son were probably the Locust-beans, sometimes called St. John's bread, but it is quite probable that the "locusts" eaten by St. John were the insects. At any rate, locusts are regularly eaten in the East. The Locust Tree (Ceratonia siliqua), or Algaroba or Carob, has large, dark-purple pods; there is a pulpy material between the seeds which forms a valuable cattle food. The seeds are said to have been the original "carat" weight of jewellers.

The Spikenard (Nardostachys jatamansi) belongs to the natural order Valerianaceæ. It is a wild plant of Bhutan found near Rangasnati, in India, and in ancient times it was transported on camels by the regular caravan route to Syria, Greece, and Rome. It was then worth about £3. 10s. per lb. The essence is obtained from the roots, but one hundred pounds of roots will furnish only half a pound of essence. Now it has but little value.¹⁵⁵

The Tares sown amongst the wheat were probably the seed of the Darnel. When growing, this grass is very like wheat, and it would be quite possible to mistake one for the other until the flowers and fruit are formed. Darnel is one of the very few poisonous grasses. It is said that the poison is produced by a fungus which is found in the grain. When darnel seed is ground up with wheat the bread becomes dangerous, for the poison produces severe headache, vertigo, and giddiness. Other authorities say that it causes in man and rabbits eruptions, fits of trembling, and confusion of sight. It seems not to affect horned cattle, swine, and ducks.

As regards those plants which were specially beloved and venerated by the Greeks, there is not very much to say. Moly seems to have been Allium moly, one of the onion or garlic family. It is not very remarkable in any way. Amaranth was apparently the garden Love-lies-bleeding, called in France Queue-de-Renard and Discipline-de-Religieuse. The Asphodel which covered the Elysian fields seems to be Asphodelus ramosus. ¹⁵⁶ This grows in quantities in Apulia, and is said to afford good nourishment for sheep.

The Myrtle, with which the Athenian magistrates and victors in the Olympic games were crowned, is not really a European plant, though it has a wide range from Asia Minor to Afghanistan. It was sacred to Venus, and had some importance as a medicinal plant and for perfumes. It was even used in cookery and for making myrtle wine, which last is said to be still prepared in some parts of Tuscany.

"Narcissus, son of the river Cephisus and of Liriope, daughter of the Ocean, was a young man of great beauty who scorned all the Nymphs of the country, and made to die of languor Echo, because he would not respond to her passion. But one day returning from the chase weary and fatigued, he stopped at the side of a fountain to refresh himself. There having seen his own face in the water, he was so smitten with it and so greatly loved himself that he died of grief. The Gods, touched by his death, changed him into a Daffodil, according to the fable."

Such is the account in M. l'Abbé Ladvocat's Dictionnaire Historique-Portatif, Paris, 1760. Daffodil means appearing early in the year. The number of races, varieties, and forms of Daffodil, Jonquil, etc., has become innumerable; yet it is doubtful if any are quite so graceful and absolutely charming as the Narcissus poeticus, supposed to be the original of the above legend.

The Acanthus leaf which was so much used in sculpture seems to have been that of Acanthus spinosus. It can still be traced in modern carving, though, of course, it is very much altered and in a rather degenerate form.

It is often very difficult to say why certain plants have received so much attention and veneration in ancient times. In some cases it is clearly because they are poisonous, and therefore become dreadful and awe-inspiring. Why, however, should a twig of Rowan (Pyrus Aucuparia) be so often placed above the door of a Highland cottage? In some way it was supposed to keep off evil spirits, but there is no special reason why it should have been chosen.

The "Bour Tree" or Elder (Sambucus) has been the centre of a whole series of extraordinary and remarkable superstitions. Of the Ellhorn (Low Saxon), or Sambucus nigra, Arnkiel gives the following account: "Our forefathers also held the Ellhorn holy, wherefore whosoever need to hew it down must first make his request, 'Lady Ellhorn, give me some of thy wood, and I will give thee some of mine when it grows in the forest' – the which, with bended knees, bare head, and folded arms, was ordinarily done."

The flowers are an eye-wash and cosmetic, or they may be taken as tea or used as a fomentation. The berries are used for "elderberry wine."

A certain cure for rheumatism is to carry about a small piece of elder cut after the fashion of a rude cross.

Evelyn speaking of it says: "If the medicinal properties of the leaves, bark, berries, etc., were thoroughly known, I cannot tell what our countrymen could ail for which he might not fetch a remedy from every hedge, either for sickness or wound."

The other species (Sambucus ebulus, or Danewort) has had its name explained as follows by Sir J. E. Smith: "Our ancestors evinced a just hatred of their brutal enemies the Danes in supposing the nauseous, fetid, and noxious plant before us to have sprung from their blood."

Of all these, however, the Mandrake (Mandragora) is connected with the most extraordinary and remarkable superstitions. The plant is distinctly poisonous, and has peculiar divided roots which sometimes have a very rough resemblance to the human body. It was supposed to be alive, and to utter the most piercing shrieks when it was pulled out of the ground. In those accounts, which are based on that given by Josephus, it is the person who pulls out the root, and not the plant, that shrieks, subsequently rolls on the ground, and finally dies in torments. Therefore, if you wish to pull up a mandrake, the correct course to pursue is as follows: Tie a dog to the plant by its tail, and then whip the dog. It will pull up the mandrake, and then die in frightful agony!

This is the "insane root" of Macbeth, but its various uses, real or pretended, are too numerous to explain in detail.

Thus it was used for the following purposes: as a poison, an emetic, a narcotic like chloroform, in love-philtres and love-charms, as well as to dispel demons, who cannot bear its smell or its presence.

There are many of these relics of medieval times which are difficult to explain or to find a reason for.

Why, for instance, should old women always carry a sprig of Southernwood to the kirk in their Bibles? The leaves are, however, said to be disagreeable to insects. The Lavender stalks usually placed in linen both keep away insects and have a pleasant old-world scent.