Herb. [Skinner suggested ‘as if = blood-stringe, from its checking bleeding (a stringendo sanguinem)’; and Parkinson speaks of its use as a styptic: but -strange, -stringe, can hardly have been taken, for the nonce, from L. stringĕre. It may possibly be a corruption of ME. streng ‘string, tie’; hardly of early ME. strenge ‘strength, force,’ or of staunch. The word looks rather like an Eng. adaptation of a German or Dutch name: cf. Ger. harnstrenge morbid retention of urine, dysury, to which *blutstrenge would be analogous, though no evidence of its use has been found.] An obsolete name of the Mousetail (Myosurus minimus). Found in the Herbals since Lyte, but apparently never in popular use.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, I. lxv. 96. It is called in English Mouse tayle and Bloud strange.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, xcv. § 4. 346. Mousetaile is called … in English Bloodstrange.
1640. Parkinson, Theat. Bot., 501. Blood-strange, I think corruptly from blood-staying.
1863. Prior, Plant-n., 25.
