\mtowlrJgm*i

M& 3v?^w. isfflacc Mrfftvn/

wr

I;

/£

:S.

-£^£^

U.

•ESSAY

ON THE

TREES AND SHRUBS OF THE ANCIENTS :

BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF

Jfnxir ^tctnxtB

DELIVERED BEFORE

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

INTENDED TO BE SUPPLEMENTARY TO THOSE ON

KOMAN HUSBANDRY,

ALREADY PUBLISHED.

Br

C. DAUBENY, M.D., F.R.S.,

PROFESSOR OF BOTANY AND RURAL ECONOMY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

JOHN HENRY and JAMES PARKER.

1865.

Printeb bn &t*m. |W*«. Cornmwrlut, ©rfort.

PEEFACE.

THE late Professor Sibthorp, in founding a Chair
of Rural Economy to be attached to that of
Botany already existing in the University of Oxford,
directed that the Holder of that Office should deliver
each Term a Lecture on some one of the subjects
which the Professorship in question might be re-
garded as embracing.

In conformity to this regulation, I have, besides
placing before my hearers from time to time the
newest views on the theory of Agriculture which
modern science had developed, given occasionally
such sketches of the Husbandry of the Ancients, as
could be gathered from the Scriptores Rei Bus twee
whose writings have come down to us.

The latter have since been embodied in a work
published by me in 1857, entitled " Lectures on
Roman Husbandry," in which I presented " an ac-
count of the System of Agriculture, of the Treat-
ment of Domestic Animals, and of the Horticulture
pursued in Ancient Times, " concluding with notices
11 of the Plants mentioned in Columella and Virgil. "

To this Publication the present Lectures may be

iv PREFACE.

regarded as supplementary, containing, as they do,
a summary of the best information I have been able
to collect as to the Trees and Shrubs really intended
by those described or noticed in the principal Greek
and Roman writers.

For this purpose I have availed myself, not only
of the researches of Dr. Sibthorp himself, and of the
old commentaries on Theophrastus and Dioscorides,
which were accessible at the time he left the mate-
rials for his Prodromus Florce Grcecce, but also of
various works on the Flora of the Ancients, which
had appeared in Great Britain, France, and Ger-
many at a period more recent.

Amongst the latter may be particularised the two
Paris editions of Pliny, the one in 10 vols., pub-
lished in 1827, under the auspices of Cuvier, Des-
fontaines, and other eminent French naturalists,
the other, with a French translation, in 20 vols.,
undertaken by Pancoucke in 1829 — 37, and edited
by Grandsagne, with the assistance of several well-
known naturalists, but of which the botanical part
w7as chiefly contributed by M. A. L. a Fee ; and
also the English translation of the same Author by
Dr. Bostock and II. T. Riley, Esq., brought out by
Mr. Henry Bohn in 1855, which is enriched with
a number of useful explanatory notes, for which
the Editor has been greatly indebted to the French
author last mentioned.

1 may also mention SprengePs Historic Hci Her-

PREFACE. v

barice ; the Flore tie Theocrite and Flore de Virgile of
the same Mons. Fee ; the Flore Poetique Ancienne,
by J. B. Du Molin, Paris, 1856 ; Billerbeck's Flora
Classica, Leipsic, 1824; Dierbach's Flora Jjriciana,
Heidelberg, 1830 ; Fraas, Synopsis Plantarum Florae
Classics, Mimchen, 1845; and Lenz, Botanik der
alien Griechen und Romer, Gotha, 1859.

With the assistance of these and other appliances,
it has been my endeavour to affix modern synonymes
to as many as possible of the Trees and Shrubs
alluded to by Classical writers, although in conse-
quence of the vagueness of their descriptions, and
the loose manner in which thev noted the cha-
racters of the plants that came under their obser-
vation, I have found it scarcely within my power,
except in the case of a few conspicuous and im-
portant species, to do more, than point out with
some degree of probability the Natural Family, or
at most the Genus, to which the classical desig-
nation appeared intended to apply.

Upon the whole*, I venture to hope, that this little
Work, in conjunction with the " Lectures on Roman
Husbandry'' which preceded it, will be found to
embrace an identification of a greater number of
Greek and Roman plants than is contained in any
former English Publication ; although I must in
fairness inform my readers, that a still larger list
is included in more than one of those German
writings which have been already referred to in

▼i PREFACE.

this Preface, and that with regard to Pliny, the
French edition in 20 vols., as well as the English
Translation referred to, contain a reference to many
which, being herbaceous, have not fallen within the
scope of the present volume.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.

Trees producing Fruit — Acorns — and Resin. — Fruit Trees
naturalized in Europe — Forest Trees, viz. Oaks — Co-
nifers— Distinction of Sexes in Plants, how far recog-
nised by the Ancients — Abies — Pinus — Other Conifers . 1

LECTURE II.

Trees not included by Pliny under the head of Piciferce. —
Cedar — Juniper — Citrus — Cup ressus — Taxus — Others
not allied to either of the two preceding divisions, enu-
merated according to their place in the Natural System
— Tilia — Acer — Cercis — Cytisus — Crataegus — Arbutus
— Ornus — Fraxinus — Ulmus — Celtis — Alnus — Salix —
Populus — Betulla — Carpinus — Ostrya — Platanus . . 33

LECTURE III.

Shrubs of Greece and Italy belonging to the following
Genera. — Clematis — Berberis — Cheiranthus — Capparis
— Cistus — Dianthus — Linuui — Hypericum — Hibiscus —
Vitis — Ruta — Coriaria — Staphylea — Euonymus — Ilex —
Zizyphus — Rhamnus — Pistacia — Rhus — Ulex — Spar-
tium — Cytisus — Ceratonia — Colutea — Anagyris — Coro-
nilla — Medicago — Psoralea — Anthyllis — Ononis — As-
tragalus— Hedysarum — Lotus — Acacia — Rosa — Rubus
— Prunus — Amy gdalus — Poteri urn — Mespilus — Pyrus
— Tamarix — Ribes — Bupleurum — Philadelphus — Sem -
pervi vum — Myr tus — Hedera — Sambucus — Lon icera —
Scabiosa — Ernodea — Conyza — Santolina — Artemisia —
Senecio — G-naphalium — Staehelina — Centaurea — Cine-
raria .......... 64

vi PREFACE.

this Preface, and that with regard to Pliny, the
French edition in 20 vols., as well as the English
Translation referred to, contain a reference to many
which, being herbaceous, have not fallen within the
scope of the present volume.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.

Trees 'producing Fruit — Acorns — and Resin. — Fruit Trees
naturalized in Europe — Forest Trees, viz. Oaks — Co-
nifers— Distinction of Sexes in Plants, how far recog-
nised by the Ancients — Abies — Pinus — Other Coniferae . 1

LECTURE II.

Trees not included by Pliny under the head of Piciferce. —
Cedar — Juniper — Citrus — Cupressus — Taxus — Others
not allied to either of the two preceding divisions, enu-
merated according to their place in the Natural System
— Tilia — Acer — Cercis — Cytisus — Crataegus — Arbutus
— Ornus — Fraxinus — Ulmus — Celtis — Alnus — Salix —
Populus — Betulla — Carpinus — Ostrya — Platanus . . 33

LECTURE III.

Shrubs of Greece and Italy belonging to the following
Genera. — Clematis — Berberis — Cheiranthus — Capparis
— Cistus — Dianthus — Linuin — Hypericum — Hibiscus —
Vitis — Ruta — Coriaria — Staphylea — Euonymus — Ilex —
Zizyphus — Rhamnus — Pisfacia — Rhus — Ulex — Spar-
tium — Cytisus — Ceratonia — Colutea — Anagyris — Coro-
nilla — Medicago — Psoralea — Anthyllis — Ononis — As-
tragalus— Hedysarum — Lotus — Acacia — Rosa — Rubus
— Prunus — Amygdalus — Poterium — Mespilus — Pyrus
— Tamarix — Ribes — Bupleuruin — Philadelphus — Sem -
pervivum — Myrtus — Hedera — Sambucus — Lonicera —
Scabiosa — Ernodea — Conyza — Santolina — Artemisia —
Seuecio — Gnaphalium — Staehelina — Centaurea — Cine-
raria .......... 64

Vlll CONTENTS.

LECTURE IV.

Shrubs of Greece and Italy belonging to the following
Genera. — Erica — Rhododendron — Azalea — Vacciniurn

— Ligustrum — Phillyrea — Jasminum — Convolvulus —
Lithosperinutn — Onosma — Origanum — Teucrium — Pe-
riploca — Solanum — Lycium — Yerbascum — Phlomis —
Rosmarinus — Satureia — Lavandula — Salvia — Thymus —
Molucella — Prasium — Stachys — Vitex — Salsola — Sali-
cornia — Atriplex — Polygonum — Laurus — Daphne —

— Passerina — Osyris — Eheagnus — Aristolochia — Eu-
phorbia— Buxus — Ephedra — Asparagus — Aloe — Ruscus
— Smilax

Remarks on the dissemination of Plants — and on the
decay of Species — Inquiry into the causes affecting the
latter — Concluding Observations . . . .103

Index or Glossary consisting of an enumeration of the Trees
and Shrubs supposed to be indigenous in Greece and
Italy, with their ancient Greek and Latin Synonymes . 145

ON THE TEEES AND SHKUBS OF
THE ANCIENTS.

LECTURE I.

ON TREES PRODUCING ERUIT— ACORNS — AND RESIN.

TJAVING in my former Lectures on Rural Eco-
nomy included an account of the gardens
of the ancients and of the plants therein culti-
vated, I propose on the present occasion to intro-
duce to your notice the trees and shrubs which
constituted their forests, or were admitted into
their pleasure-grounds and plantations.

For this Pliny is our principal authority, as in
his 12th and subsequent books he enters at large
into the subject of trees and forests, regarding
them as the most valuable presents conferred by
Nature upon mankind. It .was from the forest, he
says, that man drew his first aliment, by the leaves
of the trees his cave was rendered more habitable,
and by their bark his clothing was supplied ; in-
deed, even in his day, nations existed which had
not advanced beyond this primitive condition.

Now it is worthy of remark, how many of the
trees that we know to be well adapted for the cli-
mate of Italy, had nevertheless, according to Pliny's
account, been traced to a foreign source.

Amongst Fruit-trees, we are assured that the
Cherry, the Peach, the Quince, the Damson, the

B

2 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Jujube, the Pomegranate, the Apricot, as well as
the Olive, and probably even the Vine, were of
foreign origin.

Thus the Cherry was brought from Pontus by
Lucullus after his victory over Mithridates ; the
Peach, or Mains Persica, was introduced from
Persia ; the Quince, Mains Cgdonia, from Crete ;
the Damson, Primus Damascena, from Damascus ;
the Olive, in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, from
Greece ; and even the Vine, though considered by
Pliny as indigenous to Italy, probably found its
way there from the same country.

As to the Plum, the wild variety, Primus insititia,
is indigenous in Italy, but the Apricot was im-
ported from Armenia, as was the Jujube tree from
Syria.

The Pistachia tree, Pis facia vera, Z., which yields
the nuts so common in the south of France and
in Italy, was introduced from Syria by Vitellius, as
late as the reign of Tiberius, and from the same
country came the Carob tree, Ceratonia siliqua, now
abundant everywhere.

From Syria was derived the common Fig, Ficus
carica ; from Egypt the Sycamore Fig, Ficus syca~
morus ; and from Carthage the Pomegranate. Even
the Medlar did not exist in Italy at the time when
Cato wrote.

The only native fruit-trees therefore were, per-
haps the Mulberry, Morns of Pliny, which abounded
in Italy, though not known in early Greece, and
therefore is by some believed to have been im-

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 3

ported from the East ; and more certainly the
Apple, the Pear, the Plum, and the Sorbus ; of
which latter Pliny enumerates four varieties, one of
which with fruits round like the apple, may be the
Sorbus domestica of modern botanists — a tree which,
though not common, is considered as indigenous
even in the northern parts of Europe, and yields
a fruit somewhat resembling the Medlar.

As to the other fruits, they appear, like domestic
animals, to have followed man in all his migrations ;
and it becomes a problem, for those who maintain
the late introduction of our species upon the earth,
to account for so many useful vegetable produc-
tions being known already at the period of the
earliest historical records, considering that now,
when the whole earth has been ransacked by
modern travellers, only the Maize, the Potato, and
the Tobacco amongst herbaceous plants, and the
Tea and Coffee amongst shrubby ones, have been
added to the list of articles of daily consumption
since the date of the discovery of America.

Yet when we consider, that out of the 200,000
species of plants supposed to exist upon the earth's
surface, not more than a few hundreds are calcu-
lated to afford to the human race useful products,
(except indeed as timber-trees or for fuel, which
could not be easily transported from one country
to another,) it is contrary to the doctrine of chances,
that many of those trees which minister to man's
wants or luxuries, should have been found growing
in any one of the countries in which he was in-

b 2

4 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

duced to settle. Even of those genera which afford
edible fruits, not more than one or two species
possess the qualities which tit them for man's sub-
sistence; and in the natural course of events, cen-
turies must have elapsed before their useful quali-
ties were discriminated, and the species selected
had multiplied sufficiently to be diffused over the
countries even in which they were indigenous.

The trees above mentioned, indeed, although
exotics, are perfectly well adapted, not only to
Italy, but even to countries much less favourably
circumstanced as to climate, but the same cannot
be said of the Mains Assyria or Mains medica, to
which Pliny alludes.

This tree has been supposed by Sprengel and
others to be the Citron, or Citrus medica, but a late
writer, Fraas, contends that it agrees with the
Shaddock, both because this tree is a native of
the East, whereas the Citron comes from North
Africa ; and also because it is used, as the Malm
Assyria was, for perfuming clothes by the aromatic
fragrance of the oil with which it abounds. Be
that as it may, the fruit was not eaten, being, as
Virgil describes it, " Trislis succi, tardique sapor is."

The true Orange, on the contrary, does not appear
to have been introduced into Italy till the ninth cen-
tury after Christ. Alphonse Decandollea regards it
as a variety of the Citron, which according to him
is a native of China, and was gradually transported
to the West by the Arabians and others. The
" Geographic det Plantes,

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 5

Crusades probably assisted in its dissemination
through Europe.

The Golden Apples of the Hesperides, which
some have supposed to be Oranges, seem rather
to have been some variety of the Apple tribe.

No well-authenticated account is given by the
prose writers of antiquity of the Citron being used
as a fruit, and when Virgil introduces the shepherd
Menalcas sending " aurea mala' to Amyntas, the
poet could not have intended Oranges, which cer-
tainly were not cultivated by rustics at the time
he wrote : —

44 Quod potui, puero sylvestri ex arbore lecta
Aurea mala decern misi, mox altera mittam V

In alluding to the various kinds of Indian Pepper,
Pliny mentions one which is grown in Italy, larger
than a Myrtle, and not very unlike it in appearance.
Sprengel imagines it to be the Daphne Thymelcea,
but this is uncertain.

The Date Palm is also spoken of by Pliny as
having been introduced in his time into Europe,
and it is interesting to find that those on the coast
of Spain at that period bore fruit, as at present the
only place in Europe where ripe Dates are grown
is Elche, in Valencia. In Italy they are stated to
have been barren, which agrees with our present
experience, for in the most favoured climates in
Italy, such as the Riviera, north of Genoa, though
the Date Palm grows remarkably well, and rises to
a great height, it yields no dates. This is the case
even with those at Bordighera, on the road to Nice,

b Second Eclogue.

6 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

where plantations of Palm-trees extend almost
to the dimensions of a forest, being cultivated to
supply the churches of Italy with branches for
Palm Sunday.

The Walnut is the largest of the class of trees
mentioned by Pliny as producing edible nuts. Only
one species, the Juglans regia, appears to have been
known in ancient days, and from the names given
to it of Persicum and Basilicum, Pliny infers that it
originally came from Persia. Even the Filbert,
which from its abundance in the district round
Abellinum (now Avellano), in Campania, was called
Nux Abellina, came originally from Pontus, and was
thus sometimes called Nux Poniica.

The Almond, Amygdalus communis, now so com-
mon in Italy, seems hardly to have been known in
the time of Cato, unless he alludes to it by the
name of the Greek nuts, which from the epithet
acriores applied to them, may seem to have been
intended for the Bitter Almond. Columella speaks
of the Almond by the name of Nux Grceca.

I next proceed to describe the Forest trees noticed
by ancient writers. Pliny divides them into two
classes, the glandiferous and the pitch-bearing ; the
former including all the Catkin-bearing trees, or
Amentacea, known to the ancients, the latter most
of the Coniferce.

We shall see, however, that there are many which
cannot be included in cither division.

The glandiferous seem to be comprehended under
the common name of Quercua or Bo bur. Thus Pliny

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 7

speaks of the great Hercynian Forest as consisting
of Rohora contemporary with the creation of the
world, and of gigantic size, respecting which he
reports many marvels c.

The Beech, from its possessing a kind of acorn,
is ranked amongst glandiferous trees, and there-
fore amongst Oaks. It appears to have been indi-
genous in the mountainous parts of ancient Europe,
and to have spread gradually towards the West,
for it was not known in Holland, nor probably
in England or Ireland, at the time of the Norman
Conquest.

It was not the (prjyos' of Theophrastus, who
speaks of our Beech d under the name of 'O^vr],
but it was the Fagus of Pliny, whose description,
both of its leaves and its fruit, agrees sufficiently
well with our Beech, and entirely differs from that
given of the Oak genus.

The Chesnut, for the same reason and with
greater propriety, is classed amongst the Acorn
tribe, but from the value of its nut as an article
of food, it is placed by Pliny amongst Fruit-trees.
It was applied to the same uses then as now, being
not only roasted entire, but also ground into a sort
of polenta or flour, for the nourishment of the pea-
santry. The best were those grown about Naples
and Tarentum.

c Caesar, Bell. Gall., lib. vi. c. 26, mentions the Reindeer, Bos cervi
figura ; the Alces, the Elk ; and the Urus, the Wild Bull, Bos priscus ;
all three animals extinct in that country, as living in the Hercynian
Forest. There is a figure of each of them in the Delphin Edition of
Caesar. d Lib. iii. 10.

8 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Pliny states that the tree was introduced from
Sardis in Pontus, and hence was called the Sardian
Acorn ; but its general distribution over all the
warmer portions of Europe might rather lead us to
regard it as indigenous. It forms indeed extensive
forests, extending along the south of France, through
Italy and Dalmatia, and re- appears in Asia Minor,
where it supplied Xenophon's whole army with food
in their retreat along the borders of the Euxine.

It has been supposed, that it was at one time so
abundant in England as to be regarded as native,
and the large beams of our old cathedrals and
mansions have been said to be constructed of it ;
but no plant can be considered as indigenous to
a country which does not ripen its fruit in it, and
this can scarcely be said to be the case generally
with the chesnut in England.

Those, however, who do not think this argu-
ment conclusive, may see the subject discussed in
the 59th volume of the Phil. Trans, by Daines
Barrington, and in the 61st by Dr. Ducarel, the
former of whom takes the negative, the latter the
affirmative side of the question.

Pliny enumerates twelve species of Oak as known
to him, but amongst these is the Beech, which we
place in a distinct genus. The remaining eleven
are as follows : —

1. Quercus.

2. Robur.

3. Esculus.

4. Cerris.

5. 6. Ilex — two kinds.

7. S iiber.

8. Hemeris.

9. JEgilops.

10. Latifolia.

11. Haliphloeos,

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 9

Now the following species of European Oaks are
distinguished hy modern Botanists, arranged after
the plan of Decandolle in his late revision of the
family of Cupuliferse e.

Genus Quercus.

Divided according as they ripen their seeds in
the first year, or in the second ; and then again
according as their leaves are deciduous or per-
sistent.

Oaks ripening their seeds the first year, and with

deciduous leaves.

Locality.
Quercus robur, British Oak, includ- \

ing as varieties — / _ . . .

« .,.« [ .bound throughout

Sessilmora, °

Peduuculata, )
Pubesceus.
Esculus, Italian Oak. Chiefly in Tuscany.

Ditto with leaves persistent.

Q. ilex, Holm Oak, including ) _, ,, „ -~

' . , ,, . ,. South of Europe.

Gramuntia and other varieties. ;

Q. suber, Cork-tree. Soutli of Europe.

2nd. Oaks ripening their seeds the second year, and
with deciduous leaves.

Q. cerris, Turkey Oak, including as \

a variety Q. ballota, found also > Greece and Turkey,
in Syria f. /

e See Gay, Ann. des Sc. Nat., 4th Series, vol. vi., and Endlicher,
Genera, Suppl. f Hooker.

10 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Ditto with persistent leaves.

Q. pseudo-suber, jfaZse Cork-tree. Italy.

Q. J£gilops, Valonia*. Levant.

Q. coccifera11, Kermes Oak. South of France.

The only Oak mentioned by Hooker as occurring
in Syria, which is not indigenous in Europe, is
Q. infectoria, abounding in red galls, and placed on
that account by Spach, in a distinct section, Gal-
lifera, under which head Endlicher includes also
Q. humilis, Q. alpestris, and Q. hispanica or lusitanica,
which latter, however, Gay places under Cerris.

Let us now endeavour to identify these species
with the varieties of Oak enumerated by Pliny.

The first two, Quercus and Bobur, are often given
by ancient writers as generic terms for the Oaks,
or acorn-bearing trees; but in his 16th Book, in
which he mentions the several varieties of the
genus Quercus, Pliny, as M. Fee thinks, would
apply the term Quercus and Bobur to the two
varieties of Quercus robur, the sessiliflora and ped-
unculata, recognised by modern botanists.

As, however, the distinction between these two
varieties is one of a botanical kind, hardly likely
to be recognised by a Roman naturalist, being de-
pendent on the fruit being in the one case attached

« JErjilops is found in Syria, and its acorns, which arc often very
large, are eaten by man. Hooker, Linn. Tr., v. xxiii.

h In Syria the most common Oak is pseudo-cocci/era, which Hooker
thinks may be a variety of cocci/era, Linn. Tr., vol. xxiii. Abraham's
Oak at Mamre, of which Hooker givc3 a drawing, is of this species.

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 11

directly to the branch, and in the other seated on
a footstalk, I must suspend my opinion on this
point until further proofs are forthcoming, and
for the present shall be content with supposing,
that both these names apply to species or varieties
of Oak of the largest size, and of the widest dis-
tribution throughout Europe.

We next come to his Esculus, a name applied
by the moderns to a species of Oak found especially
in Tuscany, and furnishing acorns so sweet as to
be much eaten by the peasantry. In olden time
the acorn, as wre read in Homer and Hesiod, was
the common food of the Arcadians, so that the
tree which yielded it must have been different
from the Oak of this country, the fruit of which
is bitter and distasteful. Yet Pliny tells us, that
the best and largest acorn is that which grows
upon the Quercus, and only the next to it in
quality on the Escidus.

Some writers identify the latter with the Beech,
regarding it as a synonym for the Fagus of the
Latins, and the (priyo? of the Greeks, which latter
name they suppose was derived from the fitness
of its fruit for food to man. The Beech-nut, in-
deed, is sweet and not unpalatable, so that in the
south of Europe it is eaten by man as well as
by beast.

Virgil, in his 2nd Georg., describes the Escidus
thus : —

" jSemorumque Jovi quae maxima frondet
Esculus."

12 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Distinguishing it from Quercus by adding —

" Atque habitse Graecis oracula quercus."

He also describes it as deeply rooted —
" Quautum vertiee ad auras
iEthereas, tautum radice ad Tartara tendit."

A description, however, which he transfers to the
Quercus in the 4th iEneid.

But Virgil and Horace do not seem to speak of
the same tree as Pliny, for his Q. esculus is a small
tree, whilst their descriptions apply to one of gi-
gantic proportions.

Martin1 justly remarks, that although the tree
may be the (^7770? of Theophrastus, it cannot be the
Fagus of Pliny, for the latter describes the Fagus as
having its gland included in a triangular covering,
and with a leaf small and very light, resembling
the Poplar ; remarking that the different species of
Oak have a gland, property so called. Ovid also
and Virgil both describe the Esculus as having
large leaves. It seems to have been less common
in Italy than the Quercus, although Horace speaks
of extensive forests of it in Apulia. I cannot,
therefore, submit to Martin's view, that it is the
sessile variety of the common Oak, but regard
it as the Tuscan Oak, Quercus esculus of the
moderns.

Pliny and Theophrastus both describe an Oak
under the specific name of Ilemeris, r)nepis. The
latter term was evidently applied to it by the

1 Notes on Ceon*. 2.

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 13

Greeks on account of the mild or sweet charac-
ter of the acorn, as contradistinguished from the
bitterness of other varieties, just as we speak of
the sweet Chesnut to distinguish the fruit of the
Spanish from that of the Horse Chesnut.

Pliny states, that although a small tree, it bears
the largest acorn of any of the Oak tribe, and
also yields the best gall-nuts.

Sprengel seems to regard it as the Quercus cerris,
but if so, it must be the tree which Decandollej
distinguishes as Q. toza, and which, as he suggests,
may be a dwarf variety of Cerris, a tree too lofty
in its ordinary character to agree with the Hemeris
of Pliny.

The Ilex of that author and the Tlplvos of
Theophrastus, are evidently our Quercus ilex, or
Holm Oak.

Pliny enumerates two varieties of this evergreen
tree, but the one with a leaf not unlike the Olive,
called smilax by the Greeks, and aquifolia by the
Latins, is not an Oak at all, but probably our com-
mon Holly, the Ilex aquifolium of modern botanists,
belonging to the family of Rhamnece. This plant,
however, only bears a berry, and has no fruit re-
sembling the Oak, a circumstance which may throw
a doubt upon its identification, and lead us to be-
lieve that Pliny must have intended some particular
kind of evergreen Oak.

Under the term Ilex, Pliny, however, confounds
with the Holm that species of evergreen Oak

1 Fl. Fr. Suppl.

14 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

indigenous to the south of Europe, which from
its being subject to the attacks of the insect called
the Coccus ilicis, occasioning by its puncture a
little red gall, known as Kermes, is denominated
by modern botanists Quercus coccifera.

This scarlet berry, or grain, as Pliny calls it, was
highly prized in dyeing until the discovery of the
cochineal insect, which from its brighter hue has
superseded it, and in the time of the Romans it
was a great article of commerce, furnishing to the
poor of Spain the means of paying one-half of the
tribute exacted of them.

Pliny, however, has committed the double inac-
curacy, of confounding the tree which bears it with
the Ilex, which indeed is not surprising, as they are
both evergreen species of the same genus, and also
with the A qui folium, which is, as already remarked,
our common Holly.

The HalijjJdceos is stated as being the worst of
any, both for firewood and for timber, having a re-
markable thick bark, and a trunk, which although
of considerable size, is for the most part hollow
and spongy, so that it rots even whilst the tree is
alive. It rarely bears acorns, and what there arc,
have a taste so bitter and forbidding that no animal
will touch them.

The description seems to correspond best with
the Q. pscudo-suber of the present day, a native of
the mountains of Tuscany, Spain, and Barbary, the
bark of which is corky, although in a less degree
than the true Cork-tree.

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 15

Its name is taken from 'AA/^Acko?, a kind of
Oak described by Theophrastus much in the same
terms as those which Pliny uses, and deriving its
name from aA?, ' salt/ and (photo?, ' bark/

The Q. cerris of Pliny would seem to be the
Turkey Oak of modern writers, although there is
much confusion in the account given of it, and we
have seen that some imagine the Hemeris to be
the Cerris of botanists, which however does not
accord with the bitter character of its acorn.

The Suber of Pliny is the 0eAAo?' of Theophras-
tus, both of which are described in such a manner
by the Greek as well as by the Roman naturalist, as
to identify them with our Cork-tree.

The only circumstance which might lead us to
doubt this, is that in one passage Theophrastus
states that it sheds its leaves annually, whereas our
Cork-tree is an evergreen. In another passage,
however, he calls it, as Pliny and other Roman
writers have done, an evergreen. Commentators
have tried to get over this difficulty, by pointing out
that there is actually a variety of the Cork-tree,
which sheds its leaves in April, and which has been
observed near Bayonnek. The time of shedding
the leaves is, indeed, not characteristic of a species,
for the Lucombe Oak1, which passes for an ever-
green, as its leaves remain on all the winter, is

k Clusius, Plant, rar. Hist., lib. i. c. 14, and Miller's "Gardener's
Dictionary."

1 Pliny, lib. xvi. c. 21, records as a marvel, that a single Oak (Quer-
cus) existed in the territory of the Thurii, where Sybaris formerly
stood, which never lost its leaves, and did not bud till Midsummer.

16 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

a variety of the Turkey Oak, the leaves of which
are deciduous.

Cork was employed by the ancients for many
of the same purposes for which it is used at
present, as for the soles of sandals for females,
both to keep out wet and to make them ap-
pear taller. Also for swimming-jackets m and for
floats.

But though it was sometimes employed for stop-
ping the holes of casks, its application to this ob-
ject does not appear to have been common, as pitch,
clay, gypsum, and even oil or honey, were used for
excluding air from their liquors. Indeed until glass
bottles were in rise, corks would be rarely wanted
for the purposes to which they are mainly applied
at the present time.

The JEgilojjs is stated to be the loftiest tree of
all, and to be attached to w7ild, uncultivated .spots,
producing, according to Theophrastus, the hardest
and best timber of any.

It is probably the species now known as JEgilops,
the finest and tallest of the Oaks that occur in
Greece, and the one which affords the acorns used
in dyeing, called Valonia.

The Latifolia is only described by Pliny as being
next in height to the JEgilops, so that it seems
difficult to identify it. It is called 7rXaTv(j)v\Xo^
by Theophrastus : query Quercus Toumefurtii Pers.,
which is generally regarded as a synonym of Q.
c err is, or the Turkey Oak.

■ VI at. in vita Camilli,

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 17

Pliny enumerates the various uses to which trees
of the glandiferous or cupuliferous family were ap-
plied in his time.

We have already alluded to the Kermes employed
as a dye, and have also noticed the galls, found, as
Pliny says, on all species of Oak, and probably in-
deed on most. Of this the Hemeris and the Latifolia
produced the best kinds. That the galls were occa-
sioned by the eggs of an insect deposited upon the
leaf or bark of the tree, the ancients do not appear
to have been aware, although Pliny notices, that
a kind of gnat is produced in the veins of the leaves,
and comes to maturity just in the same way as the
ordinary gall-nut does.

Pliny also notices the edible mushrooms which
grew at the roots of the Quercus, and which were
highly esteemed in cookery ; and also the Agaric
of the Oak, a fungus which is used as a styptic,
and furnishes the description of tinder called in
modern times Amadou.

He also mentions Cachrys, as a useful medicinal
product obtained from the Robur, the nature of
which is not knowm to us, though probably either
a fungus or some kind of excrescence.

The acorn of the Beech, when given to swine,
makes them brisk and lively, and renders their flesh
tender, and easy of digestion. Next to this stands
the acorn of the Cerris, but that of the Hex is less
wholesome to them.

The acorn of the Que reus and of the Latifolia
was in much esteem as an article of food for man.

18 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

The Oak tribe, too, stood highest in the list of
timber trees, and the best shingles for covering the
roofs of houses were obtained from the Quercus
robur.

Its bark was also applied to a variety of uses,
and especially to covering the roofs of houses ;
that of the Cork-tree, as we have seen, to most
of the purposes for which in modern times it is
made available.

I will conclude this account of the Oak tribe by
classifying the Oaks known to the ancients ac-
cording to the system proposed by the younger
Decandolle : —

Quercus.

Fruits. Leaves. Ancient names. Modern names.

r Deciduous Robur Robur

IP 'c \ „ „ Esculus Esculus

J Persistent Ilex Ilex and Coccifera

>rear' I „ „ Suber Suber

C Deciduous Hemeris Toza

The 2nd \ „ „ Cerris Cerris

year ) Persistent Halephlaeus Pseudo-suber (?)

L ,, ,, iEgilops iEgilops

I shall now proceed to notice another class of
trees, distinguished by Pliny under the name of
pitch -bearing, comprehending those now known as
the Conifer <e or Fir tribe.

These Pliny divides into Abies and Pinus : and
modern botanists, having separated the Abietina
into two groups — namely, the one with leaves
solitary or in two ranks, the other in clusters of

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 19

two, three, or five each — place the former under
the head of Abies, and the latter under that of
Pinus.

But we must not suppose that Pliny contem-
plated any such division. On the contrary, the
Spruce Fir, which stands as the very type of the
genus Abies, is not indigenous either in Italy or
Greece. Loudon, therefore, and other botanical
writers, are in error, when they regard the Abies
of the Latins as the Spruce Fir of Northern
nations.

In order to ascertain what kind of tree Pliny
meant by the term Abies, and Theophrastus by
the corresponding one 'EAar?;, our best method
will be to inquire, in the first instance, what are
the species indigenous in Greece and Italy.

In Greece Sibthorp enumerated the following: —

1. Pinus sylvestris, Scotch Fir, which he states
to be found in the mountains of Bithynia. As
this, however, has not been confirmed by succeed-
ing travellers, it seems doubtful whether he may
not have confounded with it the Corsican Pine,
P. Laricio, which though omitted by him, is re-
cognised by other botanists (Lambert, Genus Pi-
nus, Gussone, Flora Sicula), as existing in all the
southern parts of Europe.

2. Pinus pinea, Stone Pine, Wltvs of Dioscorides n,
met with on the sandy shores of Western Pelo-
ponnesus.

3. Pinus maritima, Maritime Pine, WtvKif} of Dios-

11 i. 86.

c 2

20 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

corides, found everywhere in the sandy flats of
Greece, and especially in Elis. It is probably the
same as P. halepensis, which Sibthorp omits, but
which is stated by other writers as the commonest
Fir in Greece, from the sea-shore to a height of
about 3,000 feet above it.

4. P. picea, ov Abies pectinata, the Silver Fir of
modern botanists, and the 'EAar^ of Theophrastus,
which is met with commonly on the loftier moun-
tains of Greece.

In Italy the same species occur, and in addition
to them the P. pinaster, or Cluster Pine, is abundant
as far south as Genoa, where it gives place to the
Pinus halepensis already noticed, and, according to
Tenore °, to three others, namely, P. brutia, pumilio,
and uncinata.

In the Alps, too, and the south of France, the
Pinus Mugho or uncinata, and Cembra are abundant ;
so that the Roman writers may have had in their
eye five more species of Fir than those occurring
in Greece.

Now in order to prove which of the species above
assigned is the one designated by Pliny under the
name of Abies, and by the Greeks under that of
'EXarr], let us consider the properties assigned to
that tree.

1. It was especially useful in ship -building.
Hence in Euripides1' 'EActrr; is used for a ship.

2. It grows chiefly on the summits of mountains.

3. It resembles in form the P. picea.

■ Flora Neap. f Pheen. 20H.

!.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 21

4. It is chiefly used for beams, and other pur-
poses for which solidity is requisite.

5. It gives out so much resin, that the quality
of the wood is often impaired by the quantity
emitted, even the warmth of the sun being suffi-
cient to cause an exudation ; whereas the same
process is even serviceable in the case of the
Pice a.

6. Lastly, it is inferior in the quality of its
timber to the last-named species.

Now of the Pimcses above enumerated as exist-
ing in southern Europe, the Abies pectinata is the
one which seems best to accord with the above
description, especially when we add, that Pliny q
describes it as having its leaves indented like the
teeth of a comb, which may be regarded as ex-
pressive of one of the generic distinctions between
the Abies and Pinas of modern botanists.

But we must not expect from this Author, or
indeed from any of those of antiquity, the same
precision as is demanded from modern Botanists
in such matters. Probably the two lines in Virgil's
7th Eclogue, v. 65, —

" Fraxinus in silvis pulcherrima, Pinus in hortis,
Populus in fluviis, Abies in montibus altis," —

express the amount of discrimination which the
Romans exercised in such matters ; so that, not
only the Abies pectinata, but any other resinous tree,
with narrow pointed leaves, growing in mountainous

i Lib. xvi. c. 38.

22 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

places, attaining to a great height, and serviceable
for timber, would have been included by them
under the name of Abies.

Thus when Caesar1', in describing the productions
of Britain, says, " Materies cujusque generis, ut in
Gallia est, prceter fa.gum atque abietem" he must
have alluded to the Scotch Fir, the only species
of the tribe indigenous in this country.

Palladius s, however, may refer to the Spruce Fir
under the name of the Abies gallica ; the timber of
which, he says, is smooth and hard, and is of
a character especially durable for buildings, except
under water, provided only that it be not exposed
to wet just after it has been felled.

Now the Spruce, though indeed not found in
Italy, is indigenous in Dauphiny and throughout
the Pyrenees (Flora Gallica), and its resemblance
to the Silver Fir might easily lead to its being
confounded with it, although the specific name of
Gallica would seem to shew that the ancients
recognised the distinction between the two.

A difficulty, indeed, arises from the distinction
set up by Theophrastus between the male and
female 'EAar?;.

From this recognition of the distinction of sexes
in these and other instances, it has been inferred,
that the ancients possessed some glimpse of the
modern doctrine on the subject which has been
established so fully by the researches of botanists
of this and the preceding century.

r Bell. Gal,, lib. v. c. 12. ■ NoVenbris w. II.

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 23

It cannot, indeed, be denied, that in certain
dicecous plants, — those, I mean, in which the sexes
are on different trees, — the ancients were aware of
this great truth.

Aristotle1 states, that if we shake the dust of
the male palm over the female, her fruits will
quickly ripen ; and moreover, that when the wind
sheds this dust upon the female, her fruits become
developed just in the same manner as if a branch
of the male had been suspended over her.

Theophrastus also, treating on the same subject,
says, "They bring the male to the female palm,
in order to make her produce fruits, proceeding
in the following manner. When the male is in
flower, they select a branch abounding in that
downy dust which resides in the flower, and shake
it over the fruit of the female. This operation
prevents the fruit from becoming abortive, and
brings it soon to perfect maturity."

After quoting these two passages from the two
most accurate naturalists of ancient days, I shall
not insist upon the more vague statements of Hero-
dotus,— who, in alluding to the Date-palm, informs
us, that the necessity of bringing the male into
the proximity of the female blossoms was known
to the Babylonians, — seeing that this writer com-
pares the practice to what is called the caprification
of the Fig.

Now the latter operation consisted in bringing
from the forest the branches of the wTild fig-trees

1 De Plantis.

24 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

and placing them over the cultivated ones, in order
to cause them to ripen their fruit sooner, an effect
in this instance merely -due to the multitude of
insects of the cynips tribe, which were thus brought
into contact with the fruit of the cultivated variety,
and which pierce with their little proboscides the
membrane which incloses the seeds, thus by their
stimulus causing them to ripen sooner, so as to
allow time for a second crop.

Accordingly, in this case the same effect may be
brought about by simply puncturing the figs wTith
a sharp instrument, and introducing a drop of oil
into the puncture to keep it open.

This process, therefore, bears no real analogy to
the influence of the pollen upon the stigma of
a flower ; so that it would appear that Herodotus
had a very vague notion of the nature of this latter
operation.

Neither does Pliny appear to have advanced
beyond the knowledge possessed by the writers
already quoted ; for although he states, that natu-
ralists admit a distinction of sex. not onlv in trees,
but in herbs, and in all plants whatsoever, yet in
proof of this position he only quotes the case of
the Date-palm, respecting which he offers a de-
scription of the same nature as that given us by
Theophrastus, although one couched in more po-
etical phraseology.

Thus he saysu, "that in a forest of natural
growth the female trees will remain barren if

u Lib. xiii. 7.

OP THE ANCIENTS. 25

isolated from the male, and that several females
may be seen bending towards the latter, with a
foliage of a softer character. The male tree on
the contrary, bristling with erect leaves, fecundates
the others, by its presence, by its exhalations, and
even by the dust it emits. And when it is cut
down, the females, reduced to a state of widow-
hood, become barren. So well, indeed, is this
sexual union recognised as taking place, that the
idea has arisen, of securing the act of impregnation
by man's agency, the blossoms from the male trees
being gathered for that purpose, and even some-
times nothing more being done, than to sprinkle
the dust taken from the same over the female
trees x."

x This idea has been elegantly worked out by a Dutch poet of the
seventeenth century, Fontanus, in some lines which may perhaps have
suggested to Darwin his " Loves of the Plants :" —

" Brundusii latis longe viret aurea terris

Arbor, Idumaeis usque petita locis
Altera Hydruntinis y in saltibus semula palmae

Ilia virurn referens, hsec muliebre decus.
Non uno crevere solo, distantibus agris

Nulla loci facies nee social is amor
Permansit sine prole diu, sine fructibus arbor

Utraque, frondosis et sine fruge comis
Ast postquam patulos fuderunt brachea ramos

Coepere et coelo liberiore frui,
Frondosique apices se conspexere, virique

Ilia sui vultas, conjugis ille suge
Haurire et blandum vinis sitientibus ignem

Optatos foetus sponte tulere sua.
Ornarunt ramos gemmis, mirabile dictu !

Implevere suos melle liquente favos."

7 Now Otranto.

26 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

This is the only passage, so far as I am aware,
in which Pliny adduces any facts in favour of the
existence of sexes in plants, and they are taken
exclusively from the case of dioecous ones.

As to the well-known lines of Claudian, so often
quoted in support of the idea that the ancients
possessed a knowledge of the modern system of the
sexuality of plants, where the poet says, —

" Vivunfc in venerein frondes, omnisque vicissim
Eelix arbor amat, uutaut in niutua Palmae
Fcedera, populeo suspirat Populus acta
Et Platani Platanis, Alnoque adsibilat Alnus," —

all we can say is, that they are a poetical ampli-
fication only of the idea thrown out by the prose
writers alluded to, and afford no additional evidence
in favour of its truth.

In coming to the conclusion, therefore, that all
plants are similarly circumstanced, Pliny seems to
be guided by analogy merely, nor is there reason
to infer that he possessed any knowledge of the dis-
tinct function performed in the case of flowering
plants in general by the stamens and pistils where
the two are conjoined.

At any rate, the trees to which the ancients ap-
plied the terms male and female are not such as
shew this distinction of sexes on separate indi-
viduals. Thus no plant to which the term eXarrj,
or Abies, can by possibility be applied, possesses
male flowers on one, and female ones on another
separate and distinct individual. Accordingly, we

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 27

are driven in these cases to explain the epithet
applied in some other manner, quite apart from any
consideration of sex.

Liddell and Scott accordingly consider the so-
called male plant as the Spruce, and the female
one as the Silver Fir.

This identification, however, would seem irrecon-
cileable with the fact, that the former tree is not
indigenous either in Greece or in the Levant.

Lenz, on the contrary, lays it down that the
male Fir is the red, and the female the lohite variety
of the Spruce ; to which idea of course the same
objection applies.

All we can say for certain on this subject is, that
the one called the male Fir was the loftier, hardier,
and handsomer tree of the two. It is, therefore,
probably the one which Homer alludes to as soar-
ing to the sky, {ovpavofxrjKrjs,) and describes as
growing in the Isle of Calypso, along with the
Alder, the Poplar, and other lofty trees : —

u rjpXe ^' odolo
"Ntjctov eV eaxaTirj^, o6l devSpea paKpa 7re(pvK€i,
K\r)6prj, t a'lyeipos T, iXdrr] r rju ovpavoprjKijs1.

" On the lone island's utmost verge there stood
Of poplars, pines, and firs, a lofty wood,
Whose leafless summits to the skies aspire,
Scorched by the sun, or seared by heavenly fire."

The word eAarr] indeed is used by Dioscorides in
quite a different sense, namely, to indicate the young

z Odyss. v. 239.

28 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

fruit of the Palm, in which sense Galen also em-
ploys it, applying however the term adjectively a
for the resin which flows from the Fir, and sub-
stantively b for a plant of quite a different descrip-
tion from the iXarr], probably the Antirrhinum oron-
Hum of Linnaeus.

Theophrastus points out a difference between this
and other trees, in respect to the circumstance that
it is destroyed, by having its top cut off, but not by
the removal of the entire tree, trunk, branches, and
all, so as only to leave the root and the stump at
bottom standing.

In the former case, he says, the tree speedily dies,
whilst in the latter it will put forth again fresh
shoots.

With regard to the degree of danger incurred in
lopping Firs modern writers are divided, all however
agreeing to regard it as a prejudicial practice c.

Of the tendency of the tree in some rare cases
to put forth fresh branches when cut nearly down
to the ground, an instance is given with respect to
a forest situated in the Pyrenees, in the work of
a Mons. Leroy, Paris, 1777.

It seems that in this case the forest was wholly
made up of shoots that had pushed forth from
the stumps, after the trees had been felled nearly
to the ground, no less than twelve branches being
sometimes known to have sprung from the same
trunk.

• Lib. i. c. 92. b Lib. iv. c. 2.

r See Selbj on Forest Trees.

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 29

Theophrastus also remarks, as a peculiarity of
this tree, that when a branch is broken or cut off,
a protuberance forms round the cicatrix, which is
black, and of such hardness, that the Arcadians
made cups out of it ; adding, that the softer the
wrood is, the harder is the protuberance.

Modern wrriters speak of this as a swelling in the
bark of the tree, attributing it to an insect, which
by irritating the vegetable tissue determines a flow
of resinous matters to the part d.

The next species of Fir noticed by Pliny is the
Pinus, the ttltvs of Dioscorides. The former writer
states, that it w-as common about Rome in his time,
that its nuts or seeds were eaten, and that it sends
out branches from the top. These particulars would
lead us to identify the tree with the Pinns pinea, or
Stone Pine, which forms so conspicuous a figure in
the Roman landscape ; and this suspicion is con-
firmed by a letter of the younger Pliny, who in his
account of the great eruption of Vesuvius, which
destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii, compares the
smoke which rose from the volcano to this Pine in
point of shape. Now the vapour which ascends
from a volcano resembles the Stone Pine in this
respect, that it runs first in one narrow vertical
trunk, and then spreads itself out laterally on all
sides in a conical form. Such is the case with
the Pinus pinea, which has no branches on the
lower part of its trunk, but sends out numerous
ones in an umbrella form from its summit.

d See Selby on Forest Trees.

30 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

The next kind of Fir enumerated by Pliny is the
Pinaster, but whether this be the same as the species
now known by that name seems doubtful.

It is called by Theophrastus 7revKrj aypLa, and
Pliny says that it is nothing else than a wild variety
of Pine. He informs us, however, that it rises to
a surprising height, that it throws out branches
from the middle of its trunk, and that it yields
a more copious supply of resin than the Pine.

" Many people," he says, " think that this is the
same tree which grows along the shores of Italy,
and is known by the name of Tibulus ; but the
latter is slender, and more compact than the Pine ;
it is likewise free from knots, and hence used in
the construction of light galleys. It is also as
deficient in resinous matter as the Pinns.

Now it seems doubtful from this description,
whether the tree called Pinaster by Pliny ought to
be identified, as has been generally done, with that
so called in modern times.

It does not appear that Pliny's Pinaster grows
near the sea, although the Tibulus, which has been
mistaken for it, does ; and the Fir so common on
the sandy flats of Greece is not the Pinaster or
Cluster Pine which has proved so invaluable in
reclaiming large tracts of country on the western
coasts of France, but the P. maritima, which is pro-
bably the same species as P. halcpensis, the Aleppo
Pine of modern authors.

We next find noticed the Picea, so called from
the abundance of resinous juice it exudes. It loves

i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 31

mountain heights, and cold localities. It spreads
out its branches from the very root of the tree,
adhering to its sides like so many arms. Its wood
is much valued for the construction of rafters, and
of other articles requiring strength and durability.

This would apply to the Scotch Fir of our
island, but as the latter does not extend much
into the southern parts of Europe, the Corsican
Pine, Finns laricio, is more probably the one
intended.

It seems to be the same which Theophrastus e
calls TrevKrj ISala, and which he there distinguishes
from 7T€VKrj irapaXias, the Pinaster.

Next we find noticed by Pliny the Laria?, which
commentators in general consider the same as the
Larch of the present day, a tree not known in
Greece. It abounded in turpentine, as does our
Larch, from whence the Venice turpentine is chiefly
derived, but the durability ascribed to its timber
is greater than the moderns are wont to attribute
to the Larch.

Lastly, Pliny notices the Tee da as a Fir which
yields more resin than any other excepting the
Pitch-tree, and was on that account used for torches
in religious ceremonies. The term Pinus tceda is
applied by modern botanists to a Fir indigenous in
North America, and extending from Florida to
Virginia, called the Frankincense Pine, also re-
markable for the quantity of turpentine which it
affords.

e Lib. iii . c. 8.

32

THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

The Tcecla of the ancients may perhaps be iden-
tified with the Pinus Mugho of modern botanists,
the Torch Pine of the French, the Pumilio, or Dwarf
Pine of old writers, indigenous in most mountainous
parts of Europe, more especially in France and
Germany, which is also a tree highly impregnated
in turpentine.

Accordingly, we may with some degree of proba-
bility identify the species of Fir named by Pliny
and Theophrastus with the
species : —

following

modern

Leaves in pairs.

in fives.

Solitary, evergreen.
Fascicled, deciduous. Lnrix.

Ancient.
Pinaster.

Tasda.

Picea.

Pinus.

Strobus(?)f.

Excelsag.

Abies.

gallica.

( Pinus bale
( mariti

Modern.
epensis, or
tima.
mugho.
laricio.

pmea.
cembra.

Abies pectinata,

excelsa.

Larix.

1 Only mentioned once by Pliny, lib. xii. 40, as used in fumigations.
It seems rather rash to identify it, as Fraas has done, with the modern
Cembra.

* Identified by Dr. Hooker with the Pinus Pence of Griesbach,
which that botanist had noted on Mount Peristeri in Macedonia, and
had considered as intermediate between P. cembra and P. strobus.

The P. excelsa, so common in the Himalayas, has not been observed
nearer to Greece than Afghanistan, a distance of more than 2,200
miles. — (Jour, of the Linn. Soc, vol. viii. No. 31.)

LECTURE II.

CONIFEROUS TEEES NOT INCLUDED EY PLINY UNDER THE HEAD

OE PICIFEILE — CEDAR, OF THE ANCIENTS CEDARS OF THE

MODERNS JUNIPER — CITRUS OF THE ANCIENTS — TAXUS

OTHER TREES NOT BELONGING- TO THE TWO PRECEDING
DIYISIONS, ENUMERATED ACCORDING TO THEIR PLACE IN

THE NATURAL SYSTEM — TILIA — ACER CERCIS — CYTISUS

— CRAT^GUS — CORNUS ARBUTUS — FRAXINUS — ULMUS

CELTIS — ALNUS — SALIX — POPULUS — BETULLA — CARPINUS —
OSTRYA — PLATANUS.

THERE are still a few plants not placed by the
ancients under the name of Piciferce, which
either belong, or bear a near relation to, those
which modern botanists regard as conifers. Thus
we have repeated mention of a tree called Cedrus,
or in Greek KeSpos, which afforded timber for
many useful purposes, and was at the same time
aromatic.

We are, therefore, naturally led to suppose that
it was a Cedar, and you will see it set down in
most dictionaries and lexicons a as corresponding
to that tree. Nevertheless, it is difficult to suppose
that when the writers of antiquity speak of it as
existing in Italy or Greece, they could refer to
any one of the three species of Cedar recognised
by modern botanists, namely, either to 0. Libani,
C. Atlantica, or C. Deodar a,

a See Scott and Liddell.
D

34 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Theophrastus, indeed, mentions the large size
which the KeSpo? attains in Syria, in this instance
alluding plainly to the Cedar of Lebanon ; but nei-
ther this nor the other two known species appear
to have found their way into Greece or Italy in
ancient times, nor indeed are they recognised at the
present day as indigenous in either country.

The Cedar of Lebanon was not introduced into
England till about the time of Evelyn ; nor into
France till much later, namely, in 1737, when
Bernard de Jussieu brought over from the Holy
Land a little seedling of this plant from the forests
of Mount Lebanon.

A romantic account is given of the difficulty
this naturalist experienced in conveying it to
France, owing to the tempestuous weather and
contrary winds he experienced, which drove his
vessel out of its course, and prolonged the voyage
so much that the water began to fail. All on
board were consequently put upon short allow-
ance ; the crew, having to work, being allowed one
glass of water daily, the passengers only half that
quantity. Jussieu, from his attachment to botany,
was induced to abridge even this small daily allow-
ance, by sharing it with his plant ; and by this
heroic act of self-sacrifice, succeeded in keeping
it alive till they reached Marseilles.

Here, however, all his pains seemed likely to
be thrown away, for as he had been driven, by
want of a flower-pot, to plant it in his hat, he ex-
cited on landing the suspicion of the Custom-house

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 35

officers, who at first insisted on emptying the
strange pot, to see whether any contraband goods
w7ere therein concealed.

With much difficulty he prevailed upon them to
spare his bantling, and succeeded in carrying it in
triumph to Paris, where it flourished in the Jardin
des Plantes, and grew until it reached one hundred
years of age, and eighty feet in height. In 1837
it was cut down to make room for a railway, and
now the hissing steam-engine passes over the place
where it stood.

Nor is the Cedar mentioned in any of the Floras
of Greece or Italv, and if it had existed in either
country in the days of Theophrastus or Pliny, it
could not have failed to be noticed by them for
its peculiar and noble appearance.

Although called the Cedar of Lebanon, it does
not seem to be so abundant in that locality as in
some others. Tchihatcheff, a Russian traveller,
speaks of vast forests of it on Mount Taurus in
Asia Minor, whilst on Lebanon only a very few of
the older trees survive; and Dr. Hooker, in 1860,
counted in all no more than about 400 trees, of
which only 15 exceeded fifteen feet in girth b.

Nor do the qualities of the tree correspond to
those attributed to the Cedar of the ancients.
Whatever may have been the durability of the
wood of which Solomon's temple was built, this

b Mr. Tristram, however, a more recent traveller in the Holy Land,
appears to have discovered a new locality in the Mountains of Lebauon,
where this Cedar is more abundant.

D 2

36 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

tree in other regions does not appear to be adapted
for the purposes to which in ancient times the
Cedar was applied.

Virgil c speaks of the Cedrus in common with
the Cypress as employed in house-building : —

" Daut utile lignum
Navigiis pinos, domibus cedrumque cupressosque."

In the 7th book of the iEneid, line 13, he alludes
to the Cedar as used for fragrant torches : —

" Urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cedrum :"

and, in line 178, for statues, the images of the
ancestors of Latinus being carved out of an old
Cedar : —

" Quin etiain veterum effigies ex ordine avorutn

Antiqua e cedro,

Vestibulo adstabant."

But if the word Cedrus cannot be supposed to
have any reference to our Cedar, it is somewhat
difficult to determine what the tree intended can
have been.

That which seems best to correspond with the
descriptions given of the Cedrus by ancient writers
is the Juniper, and hence it may be worth while to
note down the accounts given of it by classical
authorities.

Now that which we meet with in Theophrastus
is probably the most authentic, as it is the most
detailed, of any that can be gathered from their
writings.

' (jJcorg. ii. 443.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 37

This writer remarks d, that according to some
there are two sorts of Juniper, dpKevflo?, one of
which has blossoms but no fruit, the other fruit
but no blossoms, like the Fig.

And in his eleventh chapter he goes on to say-
that many consider that there are two sorts of
Cedar, KeSpov, the Lycian and the Phoenician.

Others, as the inhabitants of Ida, know only of
one kind, which is like to the dpKevOos ; but there
is a difference in the leaf, which in the Ke8pov is
hard-pointed and prickly, but in the apKtvOos softer.
The dpKcvOo?, also, seems to be the loftier tree of
the two.

There are people, nevertheless, who apply the
name of KeSpov to the apKevOos, as well as to the
tree which more properly receives that appellation ;
or else, calling the dp/cevOo?, KtSpov, they distin-
guish the tree properly called Ke8pov, by the name
of o^vKedpov.

Both have many branches and a knotty timber.
The heart- wood of the KtSpov resists decay, and is
red, but in the KeSpov it is fragrant, whilst in the
dpKEvOo? it is not so.

The fruit of the KeSpov is yellow, of the size of
that of the Myrtle, and possesses an agreeable
smell.

The dpK€v6os has a similar kind of fruit, but it is
black, rough, and almost disagreeable. It hangs
on the tree for a year, and then gives place to new
fruit. Its bark is like that of the Cypress, but

d Hist. PI. iii. 4.

38 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

rougher ; both have loose and flat-growing roots.
It thrives chiefly in rocky and cold situations.

Pliny e, who, as is usual, follows Theophrastus,
says that Phoenicia produces a small Cedar, very
like the Juniper, of which there are two varieties,
the one found in Phoenicia, the other in Lycia. But
he adds, there are two kinds of large Cedar also,
the one that blossoms, but bears no fruit, the other
bearing no blossoms, but a fruit similar to that of
the Cypress.

This latter would seem to have been the same
tree to which Virgil alludes, as he goes on to state,
that the wTood is so durable that it has been used
for making images of the gods, and that there is
in a temple at Rome a statue of Apollo Sosianus in
cedar, originally brought from Seleucia.

Now in his description of the two kinds of large
Cedar, Pliny evidently refers to the male and female
Juniper; for although it is not true that the fruit-
bearing trees are destitute of blossoms, yet the
latter, being small in their early stage, might have
been overlooked.

But if so, it still remains a question, to which
species of the Juniper tribe Pliny could have re-
ferred.

We find, according to Sibthorp, five species of
Juniper indigenous at the present time in Greece,
and of these only three, or at most four, are iden-
tified by that botanist with any of the plants named
by Dioscorides.

e Jill), xiii. c. 11.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 39

These are Juniperus communis, apKevOos jxiKpa ;
Juniperus oxijcedrus, Ke8po? pttKpa ; Juniperus phoe-
nicia, fipaOvs irepov ; Juniperus sabina, fipa0v?.

1. Juniperus communis loves cold places, and is
frequent on hilly places in north Italy. In Greece
it is found on the highest mountains, as at Athos
and Olympus. The ancient Greeks had no particu-
lar name for it, but designated it as dpKevOos- fxtKpa.

2. Juniperus oxycedrus, a shrub of about six feet
in height, common all along the borders of the Me-
diterranean. To this the J. macrocarpa of Sibthorp
is very like, as well as J. rufescens of Link, which
grows in the south of Europe, from Portugal to
Macedonia and Thrace. The ancients called all
three KeSpo? or Kedpov.

3. J. phoenicia, or hjcia, is a low shrub, like the
Savine, of which Dioscorides considers it a variety,
with a strong aromatic smell, common in Asia
Minor, Arabia, and Syria.

4. J. sabina, indigenous on the southern and
northern slopes of the Alps, and more rarely on the
mountains of Greece, was termed by the ancients
fipaOvs. The ancients, it may be observed, called the
Juniper generally by the name of Cedar ; although
Pliny, as we have seen, distinguishes between the
two, saying that Phoenicia produces a small Cedar
which bears a strong resemblance to the Juniper.

Now it is evident that none of the above cor-
respond with the description given by Pliny of the
larger kinds of Cedrus ; those from which the beams
of houses and the images of the gods were fabricated.

40 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

L

But the Juniperus thurifera, 2l native of Spain
and Portugal, grows to the height of twenty-five
feet and upwards, and the /. excelsa, first discovered
in Siberia by Pallas, and now found to be common
in Asia Minor, Syria, and the Grecian Archipelago,
is still loftier f.

Is it not probable, that one of these may have
been known to the ancients ? Or are we compelled
to cut the knot, by alluding to the inaccurate in-
formation they possessed, and by supposing some
other tree of the Fir tribe to have been employed
under the name of Cedrus for many of the purposes
above indicated ; just as the early settlers in North
America called the Thuja occidentals by the name
of the White Cedar.

Not but that in the flourishing periods of the
Roman Empire the Cedrus Libani and atlantica may
have been imported as timber, although not grown
in the country.

The latter, however, would have come to be
superseded for purposes of ornament, by another
tree found in the same part of Africa, which went
by the name of Citrus — whether from some fancied
resemblance to the wood of the Lemon, does not
appear. This is the tree which supplied the ma-
terial for those fine tables, so much valued in an-
cient Rome, of which Cicero, we read, possessed
one estimated at 1,000,000 sestertia, about £9,000,
whilst still more fabulous prices are recorded as
having been paid for them. The roots were cspe-
{ See Grisebach, Flora Rumelica, 1845.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 41

cially prized for the rich play of colours which their
variegated and knotty texture produced. But the
wood wTas also in request for furniture, especially in
veneering.

Pliny has given a long account of the qualities
most esteemed in these tables, and Martial and
Lucan also refer to them.

Horace g proposes to employ the wrood, as the
most precious commodity that could be selected,
for a temple in which a marble statue of Venus was
to be placed : —

" Albanos prope te lacus
Ponet marmoreaui sub trabe citrea ;"

and Petronius Arbiter, in descanting upon the luxury
of the Romans, seems to represent it as worth more
than its weight in gold, where he says, —

" Ecce Afris eruta terris
Ponitur, ac maculis itnitatur vilius aurum
Citrea mensa."

Now I am aware that some modern writers have
supposed that the wood which furnished this ma-
terial was the Cedrus atlantica ; but it is more
probable that it wTas the Thuya articulata, or Cal-
litris qaadrivalvis, a coniferous tree, which is found
at present in Algeria, and furnished those beautiful
specimens of ornamental cabinet-work which were
so much admired at the Exhibition in Paris a few
years ago \

From its fragrant odour it was known in the early

s Carm. i. lib. 4. Od. 1.

h See Catalogue des produits Algeriennes. Paris, 1855.

42 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

days of Greece, Pliny says, by the name of Thuyon,
6vov, or wood of sacrifice, under which name it
is mentioned by Homer in his description of the
Isle of Calypso.

The finest kind was grown, Theophrastus says,
near the Temple of Jupiter Amnion.

The Cupressus of Pliny, and the KvirapiTTO? of
Theophrastus, was the common Cypress of Italy
and Greece, the Cupressus sempervirens of Linnaeus.

As in modern days, it was dedicated to mourn-
ing—

" Neque liarum quas colis arborum
Te praeter invisas Cupressos
Ulla brevem dominum sequetur." — Hoeace.

Although in reality the plant is monoecoiis, Pliny
and others describe two sexes in it, distinguishing
as the female that which is more pyramidal, and by
the male that whose branches are more horizontal.

There are, in fact, two varieties of Cypress recog-
nised in modern days, viz. the pyramidal, and the
horizontal, the one tapering upwards in a conical
form, the other spreading out laterally1.

Pliny regards the tree as an exotic in Italy, and
states that it came originally from Crete.

Another tree allied to the Coniferous tribe, men-
tioned by Pliny is the Taxus, our Yew. He ex-
aggerates its malignant properties, and transfers
to the berry the noxious character which applies
to the leaves and young shoots.

1 Miller's Gard. Diet,

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 43

Arrows, he says, were dipped in the juice of this
tree to render them more deadly, and poisons were
called toxica, formerly taxica, from the name by
which this tree was known.

Virgil alludes to it as communicating poisonous
properties to the Corsican Honey j, and Lucretius
even represents it as destroying life by the odour of
its flower, if this be indeed the tree intended : —

"Est etiam magnis Heliconis raoutibus arbor,
Floris odore hominem tetro consueta necare."

The tree is still rare in Greece, although it is
mentioned in the Flora Grceca, on the authority
of Sibthorp's fellow traveller, Mr. Hawkins, as oc-
curring on the rocks of Mount Cyllene, in Laconia.

It is, however, noticed under the name of MiXoy
in Theophrastus k, who describes its principal pro-
perties with tolerable accuracy.

In Italy it seems to be more common, and ac-
cording to Virgil1, bows were made of it, as at
present —

" Ituraeos taxi torqueritur in arcus."

It thrives best, however, in colder climates, as

the ancients were aware —

" Apertos
Bacchus amat colles, aquilonem et frigora taxim."

I now proceed to certain trees recognised by
ancient writers, which do not belong either to
Pliny's class of Frugiferw, or to those compre-

i Ec. ix. 30. k H. PI. iii. 9.

1 Georg. ii. 448. m Ibid., 113.

44 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

hended by him under the heads of Glanduliferce
and Piciferce.

And first with regard to the Lime or Linden,
which was known to the Greeks by the name of
(ptXvpa^ and to the Latins by that of Tilia.

In the former country it is rare, but Sibthorp
notices it as occurring in Laconia, and near Con-
stantinople.

Theophrastus speaks of the male and female
(fyiAvpa, and Pliny also notices two varieties of the
Linden or Lime, which he distinguishes in the same
manner. These differences, however, as has been
already stated, have no reference to the sex of
the plant, but relate to the hardness and toughness
of the wood, and the thickness of its bark.

The Tilia europcea of modern botanists probably
comprehends both varieties, one of which is called
Tilia macrophylla, and the other platyphylla.

When Horace in his Odes says, " displicent nexw
pliilyrd corona?" he is supposed to mean the inner
bark of the Linden ; but the (j)i\\vpla of Dioscorides
is identified by Sibthorp with the P hilly rea latifolia
of Linnaeus, a shrub common in Crete, and in the
mountainous parts of Greece, and long introduced
into our gardens.

Three varieties of "Jeer" are especially singled out
by Pliny from the many which he says exist ; nor
can there be any doubt that this term, as well as the
corresponding one 2(/;e^£a/x^oy employed by Theo-
phrastus, has reference to some members of the

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 45

Maple family ; both because the Italian acero, and
the Romaic a(f)ei>Sa/Lu, evident corruptions of the
Latin and Greek names, are applied to this tree,
and also because the descriptions presented to us by-
classical writers correspond in a general way with
tbe characters belonging to the Maple tribe.

The name of Acer is derived from the pointed
character of its leaves ; and Pliny describes the tree
as nearly of the same size as the Lime, stating that
slabs cut from it are superior even to the Citrus
in the beauty of its wood, and are only less adapted
for cabinet-work from their inferior size.

But in identifying the Acer of the Romans and
the ^(pevSa/jLvo? of the Greeks with some particular
species of Maple, and in imagining that the ancients
applied these terms consistently to one and the
same tree, modern writers have been much too pre-
cipitate.

There can be no doubt that Ovidn had in view
a different plant, when he speaks of the Acer vile,
even though in another passage he alludes to the
variegation of colour for which its timber was prized,
from that which Virgil alluded to in speaking of
the wooden horse of Troy, and of the spear of
King Evander, as being constructed with beams
of this wood ; as well as in associating the tree
in question with the lofty Fir, as constituting the
sacred groves of Phrygia °.

"Nigranti picea trabibusque obscurus acernis."

The Acer of Ovid would seem to agree best with

■ Elog. i. 11. 23. o &Um jx. 87.

46 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

the afyevSafivos aypia of Theophrastus, which that
writer pronounces as useless for timber ; but for the
Acer of Virgil we must surely look to some other
variety, more conspicuous for stature, strength, and
durability, such as the Sycamore.

Indeed the word afyevbaixvos is said to be de-
rived from afyevftovr], the bezel of a ring, or the
part encompassing the stone, which required to be
hard and compact; and at any rate afyevbaiivLvos
is used adjectively in Aristophanes1' for tough, or
as we should say, heart of oak.

Now Theophrastus q mentions another variety
which he calls Zvyla, the wrood of which, he says,
is yellow, and crisp, or twisted in its fibre (ovXop),
and he adds that the people of Stagira recognised
a third, affording a white and tough (evli/ov) timber,
which is called KXivorpoxov, a term applied to it on
account of its fitness for making the rollers upon
which bedsteads turn r.

Pliny says, that the Greeks distinguish the Acer
of the plains, which they call glinon, and the wood
of which is white and not wavy, from that of the
mountains, the wood of which is harder and more
variegated. The distinction between male and
female trees, which runs through all the classical
writers, though in a different sense from that in
which we employ it, is here noticed, and the former
is said to be best adapted for ornamental purposes.

But besides these two, there is a third kind,

p Ach. ]8L -> IT. PI. iii. 10.

r Sec Btapel, Notce in Theoph.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 47

called zygia, with a red wood, easily split, and
with a pale rough bark.

He, however, as already stated, whilst noticing
that there are several varieties of Acer, specifies
only three : First, the Gallic, remarkable for the
extreme whiteness of its wood, and known as the
Gallic tree, a native of the countries beyond the
Alps; the second, another covered with wavy spots,
and from its beauty called the pavonia, the finest
kinds of which come from Istria and Rhcetia; and
the third an inferior kind, called the crassivenum,
or thick -veined.

Now the Zvyla of Theophrastus, the wood of
which is stated to be yellow and soft, best corre-
sponds with the Acer platanoides, or Norway Maple,
whilst the KXivorpo\os agrees better with the Acer
pseudo -plat anus, or Sycamore, as he describes it as
having leaves lobed like the Plane, but less fleshy
and pointed at the apex, with a bark less smooth
than that of the Lime, slightly spotted, and with
scanty roots, and these horizontal. Its flower, he
says, is unknown, and its fruit is like that of
the Paliurus. It grows in marshy places about
Mount Ida.

Both these species of Acer are noticed by modern
botanists as occurring in Greece, though omitted
by Sibthorp. It is at least certain that only one
of the four named in the Flora Grceca, viz. the
Acer campestre, can be identified with either of the
varieties alluded to by Theophrastus, for mons-
pessulanum seldom rises higher than a shrub, whilst

48 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

creticum and obtusifolium, if indeed they are different
species, grow only in Crete and the Archipelago.

According to this view, the Acer of Virgil would
be the A. pseudo-platanus, or Sycamore of the mo-
derns, and probably the Acer Gallicum is the same
tree, for it is more common in France than in
Italy, or in Greece, in which latter country, in-
deed, Sibthorp does not appear to have remarked
its presence. It grows sometimes to a great height,
viz. 120 feet, so that it may be compared in this
respect to the Lime.

So many of the Maple tribe produce a timber,
which from its variegation of colour might answer
to Pliny's description of pavonia, that it is difficult
to determine which was intended, but as the Nor-
way, or red species, Acer platanoides , occurs more
frequently in Greece and Italy, than our common
Maple, A. campestre \ it is probable that this may
be the one referred to by Pliny, and also perhaps
by Ovid. F

The Acer campestre, however, often presents in its
roots that beautiful veined appearance, which Pliny
notices under the names of bruscum and molluscum,
and which was much prized in his day for the'
leaves of tablets, and as a veneer for couches'.
We have already seen that this quality is alluded
to by Ovid.

Cercis siliquastrum, or Judas-tree, is abundant in
Greece and Northern Italy, and Fraas supposes

• According to Fraas, Synopsis Plant., Fl. Class. Munchm, 1845.

' Lib. xvi. c. 27.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 49

it to be mentioned by Theophrastus u under the
name of ^Erj/ivda. For this, however, there ap-
pears tq be no satisfactory evidence, as the ac-
count given by the Greek writer seems not suf-
ficiently descriptive.

Cytisus laburnum is mentioned by Theophrastus x
under the name of KoXovrea.

Pliny7 speaks of a tree by the name Laburnum,
but does not describe it in a manner to identify
it with the tree now known by that name. Its
flowers, he says, which no bee will ever touch, are
a cubit in length. The latter may be intended to
designate the length of the pendulous racemes of
this tree, which is common, as he states, in the
lower parts of the Alps.

Amongst several trees belonging to the genus
Crataegus, we may mention 1st, Crataegus Aria, or
Mountain Ash, existing both in Italy and Greece,
and probably described by Theophrastus under the
name of aplaz. 2nd, Tormmalis, not a plant of
Greece, but found in the south of Italy, and sup-
posed to be noticed by Pliny a under that name,
although no description is given by which we can
identify it as such.

The same uncertainty exists as to the other
species of the same family, Crataegus oxyacantha,
our Hawthorn, which is supposed to be the Spina
alba of Columella, and by Dumolin, the 'Pa/^z/oy

u H, PI. iii. 14. * Ibid., 17. * xvi. 31.

* H. PJ. iii. 4. a Lib. xv. c. 23.

E

50 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

of Theocritus. See this further described under
that word.

Pliny b says, that the flowers of the Spina are
used for garlands, but perhaps he may refer to
the Acanthus, rather than to the May.

Cornus mascula, of Linnseus, is the Cornel of Eng-
lish botanists. Theophrastus describes it under the
name of Kpaveiac. Pliny d mentions the flavour of
the fruit of the Cornel, Cornum, and in lib. xvi. 43
describes the latter as white at first, but afterwards
becoming of the colour of blood.

The Arbutus unedo, or Strawberry-tree of modern
botanists, was common in ancient times, as it is
at present, in Greece, and Italy. In the former
country it went by the name of Kojmapo?.

Theophrastus6 describes it as a tree not grow-
ing to large dimensions, possessing an edible fruit,
called /xe/xa/zcfAoz^, a smooth bark, and a leaf inter-
mediate between the Oak and the Bay Laurel.
Each blossom equals in size and form a long Myrtle
blossom, so that it is formed like an egg-shell cut
in half, kolXov coairep ozov eyKeKoXafAfievov. The
fruit takes a year to ripen, so that it often is found
on the tree at the time when the new buds make
their appearance.

It is supposed to be alluded to by Lucretius f,
but Caspar Bauhin considers the tree there spoken
of under the name of Arbutus to be the Vitis ideca,
Vaccinium myrtillus.

b Lib. xxi. c. 3!). '• II. PI. iii. 12. " Lib. xv. c. 31.

■ II. PI, iii. 15. f Lib. v. 939.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 51

Pliny s confounds the fruit of the Arbutus with
that of the Strawberry, remarking that it is the only
known instance of a similar fruit growing upon
a tree, and upon the ground.

In other respects he follows Theophrastus, but
admits that the fruit is not "worth eating." It
was known to the Latins both by the name of TJnedo
and of Arbutus. Dioscorides likens the tree to the
Quince.

Virgil alludes to it in Eclog. iii., and in his Geor-
gics more than once, in the 2nd book applying to
it the epithet horrida, which may either refer to the
rough character belonging to its bark, or to the as-
tringent nature of the tree in general.

The other species of Arbutus, viz. Andrachne,
a tree peculiarly of Greece, is, however, regarded by
Sib thorp as the Kopapo? of Dioscorides.

Yet Theophrastus speaks of a tree he calls av-
Spaxvrj, or avftpayXri, like the KOfiapo? in its leaves
and fruit, not of any great size, and with a bark
smooth and peeling off, the latter a good charac-
teristic of this species.

Pliny h says, that the Portulaca (our Purslane) ,
an herbaceous plant, is called generally by the
Greeks Jdrachne, but that his Adrachne, or as in
another place1 he calls it, Andrachne, is a tree similar
to the Arbutus in appearance, but with smaller leaves,
and evergreen. He describes the bark as peeling
off, as Theophrastus had done.

s Lib. xv. c. 28. h Lib. xiii. c. 46.

5 Lib. xxiii. c. 103.

E 2

52 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

The Flowering or Manna-bearing Ash may per-
haps have been known to the ancients under the
same name, as Virgil distinguishes between the
Fraxinus and the Omus in his Georgicsj.

Could the notion put forth by this Poet, of the
possibility of grafting the Pear upon the Ash, have
arisen from the profusion of white blossoms by
which the Omus is distinguished ?

" Ornusque incanuit albo
Flore pyri."

The two kinds of flowers are indeed different enough,
but the beautiful bloom of white which covers the
whole tree when in flower, might be confounded at
a distance with that of the Pear.

The property of exuding manna, however, which
belongs to the Omus so common at present in
Campania, does not appear to have been observed
by the ancients.

The common Ash, Fraxinus excelsior, was known
to the Greeks under the name of /xeXla, and to the
Latins by that of Fraxinus.

Pliny k describes two varieties of Fraxinus, the
one long and without knots, the other short, with
a harder wood, a darker colour, and a leaf like
a laurel. Some authors suppose these differences
connected with their situation, stating that the Ash
of the plains has a spotted wood, whilst that of the
mountains is more compact.

j Lib. ii. c. CG, ct scq. k Lib. xvi. c. 24.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 53

He adds several fabulous statements as to the
virtues of this tree and its leaves, especially as to
its being an antidote to the bite of a serpent, and
as to the antipathy existing between that reptile
and the plant.

Possibly Pliny's second variety may be Fraxinus
heterophylla, a variety of the common Ash, with
simple undivided leaves.

Theophrastus distinguishes the fieXia and fiov-
fieXla, the latter growing in Macedonia, and of great
size. Perhaps the former may be the Omits, the
latter the Fraxinus.

Pliny notices also four varieties of Uhnus, or Elm,
the 7rre\ea of the Greeks. Two of these were
known, he says, to the Greeks, namely, the Moun-
tain Elm, wThich is the larger of the two, and that
of the plains, wdiich is the more shrubby. To the
more lofty kinds Italy gives the name of Atinia.
It does not, he says, produce that kind of seed-
vessel which we call a samara, and which is charac-
teristic of the genus. This, however, is a mistake,
wdiich Columella corrects, and arose from the smaller
size of the seed-vessel, which caused it to appear to
casual observers to be wanting. The latter author
regards the Atinia as synonymous to the Gallic
Elm, of which Pliny makes his second variety, and
he states that it is of larger dimensions than the
Italian. Upon the whole, wTe may set it down as
corresponding to our Wych Elm, or Ulmus montana.

The Italian Elm, the third of Pliny's varieties of

54 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Ulmus, has its leaves lying closer together, and
springing in greater numbers from a single stalk.
This may perhaps be Ulmas campestris, our common
English Elm.

The fourth variety he calls the Wild Elm, but
does not describe it. It affords a curious illustration
of the looseness of Pliny's classification, that he
places the Elm intermediate between forest and fruit
trees, because although it belongs to the former
class by reason of its timber, it approaches to the
latter in supporting more commonly than any other
tree the branches and fruit of the Vine.

Celtis australis, or Nettle-tree, a native of the
Levant, is noticed by Dioscorides under the name
of Acoto?.

Pliny 1 speaks of it as a tree naturalized in Italy,
and the description he gives of the fruit, which,
he says, is about the size of a bean, its colour that
of saffron, may refer to the berries of the Celtis,
which are represented as sweet and wholesome in
the south of Europe, and indeed in modern Greek,
according to Sibthorp, are called honey-berries ;
though it must be confessed the rest of his account
applies better to the true Lotus of Egypt, which he
describes afterwards with tolerable exactness.

He seems to have been misled by the name Lotus,
which had been applied to the tree, and to have
transferred to it the description which he had re-
ceived of the plant so designated in Egypt.

1 Lib. liii. C. 32.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS, 55

Much need not be said of the Alder and the
Willow.

The former, the Alnus ghdinosa of X., the Alnus
of the Latins, and the K\rj6pos of the Greeks, is
noticed by Theophrastus and Pliny as a tree planted
on the borders of rivers.

Of the latter, Pliny m mentions several varieties,
noticing their several uses for withies, wicker-work,
panniers, chairs, &c, as at present. Fee and
others have attempted to identify these with the
varieties of Willow now recognised by botanists.
The writers on agriculture, Cato, Columella, &c,
point out the importance of Willow plantations,
from the various uses to which the plant is applied.

We next come to the Poplar, Pojndus of the
Latins, cuyeipos of the Greeks, of which the ancients
recognised only two, or at most three species.

In Homer's Odyssey we read of alyeipo?*, the
motion of the leaves of which is compared to
the rapid twinkling of the ringers of the maids of
Alcinous when plying their shuttles, —

At S' larovs v<p6cocn <a.\ r]\dKara crrpcocpataiv
"H/j.€vai, old re (pvWa pa<e8ur]s alyeipoto"

" Some ply the loom, their busy fingers move
Like poplar-leaves, when Zephyr fans the grove."

To which he adds, —

Kupocrectiv b' 66ovecov a7roXet',3erai vypbv Tkaiov.

" So close the work, that oil diffused in vain
Glides off innocuous, and without a stain," —

31 Lib. xvi. c. 68. n Lib. vii. 106.

56 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

a line which is, as it would seem, erroneously
attributed to the tree, but which seems better to
apply to the compactness and smoothness of the
texture of the cloth, from which oil glided off.

In another passage0, Homer couples with atyeipo?
the epithet v8orp6(f)7)?.

The tallness of the tree, and its situation in
watery places, would seem to shew that the
Black Poplar was the one intended, especially as
the Aspen is not a common tree in Greece.

But 'Axtpcoi?, the lofty tree alluded to in the
Iliad p, seems to have been the White Poplar, cor-
responding to the Acvkt) of Theophrastus and Dios-
corides, sacred to Hercules —

"Populus Alcidae gratissima."

Pliny notices three species of Poplar, the White,
the Black, and the Lybian.

He describes the White, as having a leaf, white
on the lower side, green on the upper. The leaves
both in this and in the Black species are rounded
when young, and partially developed, which is
the case especially with those of our White Poplar,
which in their early stage are palmated, but throw
off angular projections afterwards.

The White, he says, has a white down upon its
leaves, resembling locks of wool, in which statement
he is correct, only that the cottony matter proceeds,
not as he represents it from the leaves, but from
the seeds, which are invested in a woolly covering.

0 Lib. xvii. p Lib. xiii. c. 380, and lib. xvi. c. 442.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 57

He also says, that from the buds of the Poplar
exudes a resinous juice having a fragrant smell.
This exists in the buds of the White and Black Pop-
lar, but is more remarkable in those of the P. bal-
samifera and canclicans, from America, which afford
a perfume collected from the trees in the spring,
and formerly imported from Canada into England.

As to the Lybian, it is generally set down as
P. alba, though perhaps without sufficient reason.
We are, however, assured that of the genus Populus
there exist in Greece three species, of which one
seems really indigenous, namely, P. alba, with its
variety, Populus grwca, of Aiton, found in dry situ-
ations. Next to this P. nigra is the most frequent,
P. tremula being the rarest of the three. The
former is found throughout the country in moist
places about brooks and springs, also in swampy
spots near the sea, as at Phalerus, and sometimes
even where there is but little water. Fraas saw it at
a height of 2,000 feet above the level of the sea.
Of all the trees which once embellished the soil of
Greece, it is the one which has best resisted the
destroying agencies that have been at work in some
parts of this country — indeed the only lofty one that
remains. These Poplars always stand in groups,
and form agreeable groves, formerly dedicated to
Hercules. They now, however, are found only in
a few localities.

Populus nigra grows further from dwelling-places,
and more rarely near rivers and ponds, although
Fraas did not observe it on any remarkable heights.

58 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

It occurs more rarely in the south, and most fre-
quently near the Sperchius and Achelous, and in
the Olive-woods of Athens.

The rarest species is P. tremula, which Fraas ob-
served only twice, namely, on the north side of
Parnes, behind Menidi, in a gorge 1,800 feet high,
and on the Achelous, behind Lithoriki. Sibthorp
also found it in Bceotia.

The Lombardy Poplar, P. fastigiata, the hand-
somest of the species, often regarded as indigenous
in Europe, does not appear to have been known by
the ancients.

It may have come from Persia, where it is said to
be very abundant, for before 1805 it had not made
its way even into Tuscany q. Into France it was
introduced in 1745, and into England about 1758.

In spite, therefore, of the opinion of Manetti1',
who contends that it is native, because it springs
up spontaneously in places near the Po, where the
surface soil has been washed away by the inunda-
tions of the river, I think it probable that it found
its way into Italy since the time of the Romans.

The same remark applies to the Horse-chesnut,
JEsculus hippocastanwn, a tree introduced into Eng-
land from the Levant less than 300 years ago, and
indeed indigenous, it is said, in Northern Asia.

Yet we could hardly fix upon two trees more
completely naturalized, and entering more fully into
the landscape of Northern Europe, than the Lom-
bardy Poplar and the Horse-chesnut.

1 Loudon. r Gard. Mag., vol. xii.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 59

We may therefore more readily believe the re-
port of Pliny, that the Oriental Plane came from
Asia, notwithstanding its wide distribution over
the southern parts of Europe.

Pliny s notices the Birch under the name of Be-
tulla, corrupted by modern writers into Betula. He
considers it as a native of Gaul, probably because
it prefers cold and mountainous places, and was
therefore first noticed in the Alps, although common
in the Apennines. He describes it as remarkable
for its whiteness and slender shape, and as em-
ployed for making hoops and the ribs of panniers.
In Gaul they extracted from it a bitumen, as they
do at present in Russia, where the oil obtained is
used in preparing Russia leather.

It was regarded with a feeling of dread, in ♦con-
sequence of the fasces of the magistracy being com-
posed of it, "as now," says Evelyn, "are the gen-
tler rods of our tyrannical pedagogues for lighter
faults." What the corresponding word in Greece
may have been is somewhat doubtful, and for this
reason, that the tree is not indigenous there, and
therefore may not have been known to the writers
in that country.

It probably, however, existed even then on the
mountains, as it now does in Turkey and Asia
Minor, from one of which localities came the fine
specimen of Betula alba, v. pontica, which may be
seen flourishing in our Botanic Garden.

» Lib. xvi. c. 30.

60 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Theophrastus * speaks of a tree called ^rjjivSa,
having a leaf like the Walnut, but narrower, the
bark variegated, and the wood light, and only ser-
viceable for staves. This the early commentators
have chosen to identify with the Birch, but without
sufficient reason. The description does not agree,
and the Birch is not only not a native of Greece,
but, Fraas says, will not thrive in that country
when planted.

That writer, therefore, suggests it to be the Judas-
tree, Cercis siliquastrum, but Sibthorp, more cau-
tious, does not pretend to identify that plant with
any one mentioned in ancient writings.

The Hornbeam, Oarpinus betulus, is not common
in Greece, but is noticed by Sibthorp as occurring
on some of its loftier mountains, and in the nei^h-
bourhood of Constantinople. In Italy it is frequent
in hilly situations, and Columella states u that the
best handles for agricultural implements, next to
the Ilex, are made out of Hornbeam, which is even
preferable to the Ash for such purposes. It seems
to have been known as Carpinus in Italy, but its
Greek name is not ascertained.

The Hop-hornbeam, Ostrya vulgaris, is the Os-
trya of the Latins, and the oarpv? of the Greeks.
It is alluded to by Theophrastus under the latter

name \

11. PI. iii. 14. '• Lib. xi. c. 2. * II. PI. iii. In.

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 61

Pliny also states that his Ostrya is a solitary tree,
growing about rocks washed by water, and very
similar in its bark and branches to the Ash y.

Amongst the timber trees most remarkable for
their size and beauty I may mention the Oriental
Plane, the Platanas of Pliny, and the YlXdravos of
the Greeks, which though flourishing everywhere
in Italy, and indeed in countries much less favoured
by climate, was, Pliny says, first brought across the
Ionian Sea to the Island of Diomedes, one of a
small group lying off the coast of Apulia, of volcanic
origin, and so nearly in a line with the volcanos of
Vesuvius and Vultur on the Italian continent, that
I should be tempted by its existence midway be-
tween the two countries to extend the line of
igneous action existing in that quarter from Italy to
Albania, and to suppose these islands to be a con-
necting link between the two.

The Plane-tree, Pliny says, was first planted at
the tomb of Diomede, who was buried there, when,
according to the fable, his companions were turned
into sea-fowl, which still frequent the shrine of the
hero, and seem to discriminate between Greeks
and Barbarians, giving to the former a courteous
welcome, but pursuing the latter with loud and
clamorous cries2.

The Plane-tree was afterwards imported from
thence into Sicily, and had become in the time of

r Lib. xiii. c. 37. z Lib. x. c. 44.

62 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Pliny so naturalized on the Continent, that even
the Morini, a nation of Belgic Gaul on the shores
of the British ocean, were taxed for the privilege of
enjoying its shade.

The size which these trees had attained in the
time of Pliny was remarkable. In Lycia the cavity
in the interior of one of them formed a species
of house, 81 feet in width, and had been fitted up
with seats, in which, it is added, the pro-consul of
the province, Licinius Mucinus, entertained eigh-
teen persons of his retinue at a banquet.

Dr. E. D. Clarke also describes a marvellous tree
of the kind in the Island of Cos ; and another
in the Straits of Thermopylae, " of unknown anti-
quity, self-sown in its origin, and one of many
that may have flourished upon the spot ever
since the Lacedaemonian soldiers were seen at the
fountain combing their hair, and amusing them-
selves with gymnastic exercises. "

Probably, however, the magnificent trees of this
description now existing on the shores of the Bos-
phorus, called the Seven Brothers, where, it is said,
Godfrey de Bouillon, with his army of Crusaders,
in 1096, encamped, might surpass in beauty and
interest all those instanced by the writers of an-
tiquity.

The largest of them is 90 ft. in height, and
150 in circumference, indicating at the usual rate
of growth of this tree, perhaps 1,500 years of
duration.

Pliny mentions also, in the Island of Crete, an

ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 63

evergreen variety of the Plane, which had even
been propagated by cuttings. This statement, how-
ever, appears apocryphal.

More credit seems due to his report as to dwarf
Plane-trees (Chamceplatani) existing in his time in
Italy : for it is well known that the Chinese have
long possessed the art of growing stunted vari-
eties of the larger trees by pruning their roots,
and by employing other means of arresting their
development.

LECTUEE III.

SHRUBS OF GREECE AND ITALY BELONGING TO THE
FOLLOWING GENERA:—

CLEMATIS — BEEBEBIS — CHEIRANTHUS — CAPPAEIS — CISTUS

DIANTHUS— LINUM — HYPERICUM — HIBISCUS — YITIS — BUTA

— COEIARIA — STAPHYLEA — EUONYMUS — ILEX — ZIZYPHUS

RHAMNUS — PISTACIA — RHUS — ULEX SPARTIUM CYTISUS

CERATONIA COLUTEA ANAG YRIS CORONILLA MEDI-

CAGO PSOBALEA ANTHYLLIS — ONONIS — ASTRAGALUS

HEDYSAEUM — LOTUS ACACIA ROSA BUBUS PRUNUS

AMYGDALUS — POTERIUM — MESPILUS — PYRUS — TAMARIX

RIBES BUPLEUBUM PHILADELPHUS SEMPEBYIYUM

MYBTUS — HEDERA SAMBUCUS LONICERA. SCABIOSA

ERNODEA — CONYZA — SANTOLINA ARTEMISIA SENECIO

GNAPHALIUM — ST.EHELINA — CENTAUREA — CINERARIA.

T NOW proceed to the identification of the shrubs
noticed in ancient writers, including all that
are mentioned by Sibthorp in his Flora Grceca as
indigenous in Greece, and by Manetti, quoted in
Loudon's Arboretum, vol. iv., as now growing in
Italy, omitting from the latter list those which
are clearly of exotic origin.

The plants are named in the order in which they
occur in the Natural System.

Clematis.
The eight shrubby species of Clematis now recog-
nised by botanists as growing in Italy appear all to
have been comprehended by the Latins under the
term of Clematis, and the four noticed by Sibthorp in
Greece under that of KAry/xartWy ; appellations given
to them from KXij/xa, a vine-twig, or from their

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 65

climbing habit, (/cA/ytia^, a ladder). These terms,
however, probably included other climbing plants,
as the wild Vine is called in modern as well as in
ancient Greek kAt^cc : and it is very probable that
the Periploca Grceca, a creeper common in Greece ;
the Bryony, a/x7reAo? XevKrj, Dioscorides ; and other
twining plants, may be embraced under the same
denomination.

M. Dumolin, in his Flore Poetique Ancienne, con-
tends that the Viburnum of Virgil was the Clematis
viorna of the moderns.

He remarks, that in the lines —

" Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi,"

the twining character of the Clematis affords a better
contrast to the erect and lofty stature of the Cypress,
than does the Privet, which the Viburnum is com-
monly supposed to mean.

Ovid, too, seems to speak of the Clematis under
the name of Vitis alba : —

" Lentior et salicis virgis et vitibus albis."

Berberis.

In Northern Italy this plant is common, and one
species of the genus, namely, Berberis cretica, is
met with in the Archipelago, whilst another, the
B. vulgaris^ occurs in Laconia. It is remarkable,
however, that there are no traces of any descrip-
tion of the Berberry in Dioscorides.

Yet it is imagined by Royle a that the medicinal
preparation called Lycium, or Avklov, which will be

a Trans. Linn. Soc, vol. xvii.
F

66 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

further noticed under the head ofRhamnus, may have
been prepared from a species of Berberry called
B. lycium, found abundantly at present in the
mountains of Nepaul, and also, if we may believe
the accounts of Arabian writers, in Syria and Asia
Minor. An astringent medicine is extracted from
its root and stem, and a yellow colouring-matter is
also obtained from the latter, as was the case with
the Lycium of Dioscorides.

As that writer therefore speaks of two kinds of
this medicine, one the produce of Lydia and Cap-
padocia, and the other of India, it is very possible
that the latter, which was the most prized, may
have been obtained, as Royle thinks, from a Her-
berts found in Persia, and in countries still further
to the East.

It is conjectured, that the Berberry may be meant
by the term Spina appendix, a plant described by
Pliny b as a thorn with red berries hanging from its
branches, and that b^vaKavOa in Galen may imply
the same. This word, as Sibthorp informs us, is
still used in Greece to signify the Berberry. The
KoXovrea of Mount Ida, mentioned by Theophras-
tusc, is by some supposed to be the Berberis cretiea;
but I shall speak of this hereafter.

CltUCIFEltiE.

Amongst the Cruciferce several frutescent plants
are noticed by Sibthorp in Greece, but none of
them can be safely identified with modern plants.

b Lib. xxiv. c. L3. ■ Lib. iii. c. L6.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 67

The term ' AXvcraov indeed is applied to some
plant or other by Dioscorides, and the old botanists
have chosen to adopt the same for a genus of
which four suffruticose species are noticed in
Greece.

But the modern Alyssum cannot be shewn with
any degree of probability to correspond with the
' AXvaaov of the Greeks.

Cheiranthus cheiri, indeed, may have been desig-
nated by the term XevKoiov d, but Sibthorp regards
the 0. tricuspidatus as better entitled to that name,
especially considering its resemblance to the draw-
ing of XevKoiov attached to the Vienna MS.

Capparis.

I may refer to my " Lectures on Roman Hus-
bandry e " for some remarks on this plant, which
went amongst the ancients by the same name
which is at present applied to it. Royle, however,
in a Paper read before the Asiatic Society, 1844,
contends that it may be identified with the Hyssop
of Scripture. Two species are enumerated by Sib-
thorp as indigenous in Greece.

Cistus.

Eight species of Cistus, or Rock-Rose, including
two of Helianthemum, are mentioned by Manetti
as existing in Italy, and no less than twenty-one
shrubby species by Sibthorp in Greece. Of these,
the Cistus creticus, common in the Islands of the

d See " Roman Husbandry," p. 240. e p. 253.

F 2

68 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Archipelago, is identified by Sibthorp with the
Addavov of Dioscorides, whilst the 0. villosus is
set down by him as corresponding with k'mttos
apprfv, and 0. salvifolius with k'kttos OrjXvs.

The substance called Ledanum, or Labdanum, is
a resinous exudation from the Cistus creticus, and
probably from other species of this tribe. Indeed
the C. ledon of our gardens, commonly called the
Gum Cistus, owes its vernacular name to the resin
it exudes. Herodotusf tells us that Arjbavov comes
from Arabia, and that it is gathered from the beards
of goats, to which it is found adhering. Dioscorides s
repeats the same story, but Pliny h adds, that it is
obtained from the Island of Cyprus, reporting the
same account as to its being collected from goats,
but adding some other particulars which are evi-
dently fictitious. In Africa and Syria, however, he
says, it is procured in a different manner, namely,
by passing over the plant, a string covered with
wool, to which the drops of resinous matter attach
themselves. A practice similar to this last is pur-
sued, according to Tournefort, in Crete, where the
gummy matter is collected by a kind of whip or
rake with a double row of leathern thongs. With
this the country people brush the plants, and when
the whips are sufficiently charged with the juice,
it is scraped off by knives and made into cakes.
Ledanum possesses stimulant properties, and was
highly esteemed in ancient times, but is now ob-
solete.

* Lib. iii. c. 112. P De M. M. i. 128. L xii. 37.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 69

It is probable that all the species of Cistus known
to the ancients were confounded under this same
name, which in Greek was k'kjQos or kicttos1,
a term nearly allied to kio-cto?, which was applied
to the Ivy.

Dianthus.

Two species of the Pink tribe run to the height
of low shrubs in Greece, namely, the Dianthus
arbor eus and fruticosus. Theophrastus k speaks of
a plant he calls Atoy avOos, which Neander, quoted
by Atheneus, states to be used for chaplets, ap-
plying to it the epithet of €vco8t]?, fragrant ; but as
there is no other reference in ancient writers to
such a plant, modern botanists have perhaps been
rather rash in identifying it with a Pink, as they
have done by giving to the latter the name of
Dianthus.

Li num.

The common Flax, Linum usitatissimum, called
\lvov by the Greeks, and Linum by the Latins,
being herbaceous, does not come under our notice.
And two fruticose species, mentioned by Sibthorp
as occurring in Greece, namely, arboreum and cws-
pitosum, do not appear to have been distinguished
by ancient writers.

Hypericum.

Six shrubby species of Hypericum are mentioned
by Sibthorp as occurring in Greece, one of which,

1 Theoph., 11. PI. k Bk. vi.

70 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

H. coris, has obtained its name from being sup-
posed to be the same which Dioscorides1 speaks
of under the name of Kopcs, a plant which he says
is also called v7repLKov.

Pliny m also speaks of two species of Hypericum,
one of which is distinguished as chamcepytis, or
Ground Pine, the other as coris. The description
given of both, leaves it doubtful whether our mo-
dern Hypericum is intended by either.

Hibiscus

has been already alluded to in " Roman Hus-
bandry V' where it is shewn that the term was
applied to various plants of the Mallow tribe, and
that it corresponded with the aXOala of Dios-
corides.

Vitis.

Some of the varieties of Vine described by an-
cient writers seem to exist at the present day —
a fact worthy of notice with reference to the much
disputed question as to the dying out of species.
Thus Pliny0 notices a Greek vine in a manner
which would lead us to believe it meant for the
Corinth Grape or Currant of the Greek Islands.

" Graecula," he says, " non inferior Amineis boni-
tate, prsetenera acino, et uva tarn parva, ut nisi
pinguissimo solo colcre non prosit."

» iii. 164. '" 15k. xxvi. ch. viii. " p. 244.

" Lib. xiv. c. 4.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 71

Columella also mentions that this variety of
Vine was cultivated in several parts of Italy as
well as of Greece ; and Mr. Hogg p states, that it
grows abundantly in the island of Lipari, where
it is called Passolina.

The engraving in the Vienna edition of Dios-
corides, will probably be considered as bearing
more resemblance to the Currant Vine, than to the
ordinary one; and Dioscorides makes mention of
two varieties, one probably the common Vitis vini-
f era in its wild state, the other the Vitis labrusca,
with a woolly leaf, the parent, as it would seem,
of the Currant or Corinthian Grape.

I may add that, according to Count Odart q, one
variety of Vine, now called Pinceau, was known
so long ago as 1 394 ; another planted in Andalusia
by the Moors still retains its characters ; and that
the Comichon of Paris was described six centuries
ago by an Arabian writer under the name of Ladies'
Finger. It may be alleged, in opposition to what
I have stated in page 2, that specimens of a Vine
have been discovered in the Tuffs, near Montpellier,
(see Planchon's late Memoir on that subject), and
likewise in the brown coal of Westphalia ; but
whether these belong to the same species as our
cultivated Vine does not appear. That the latter
should have been so, is extremely improbable.

p Observations on some of the Classical Plants of Sicily, Hooker's
Botanical Journal, 1834.

i Ampelographie Universelle, Paris, 18-AO.

72 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

RUTA.

Ruta graveolens is common in Greece and Italy,
and B. montana and chalepensis, shrubby species, are
found in the former country, as Sibthorp informs
us. The generic term is noticed in "Roman Hus-
bandry r," and there can be little doubt that the
plant intended was the species named. It was
the X\y]yavov of Dioscorides s.

Coriaria.

Coriaria myrtifolia, a shrub found in Italy, Spain,
and other of the southern parts of Europe, does
not appear to have been distinguished by the
writers of antiquity.

Staphylea.
Staphylea pinnata, Bladder-nut, noticed by Sib-
thorp, seems to be mentioned by Pliny1 under the
name of Skaphylodendron. He says, that it is found
in the countries beyond the Alps, has a wood like
the White Maple, and bears a pod in which is found
a kernel having the flavour of the Hazel-nut. He
omits to point out the loose manner in which the
capsule envelops the nut, from which it derives its
English name.

Euonymus.

Euoni/mus europceus, or Spindle-trec, is found in

Greece and Italy. Pliny ° alludes to a tree of that

name, and Theophrastus probably describes the

same under the name of evcovv/ioj/.

r p. 278. " Sibthorp. ' Lib. xvi. c. 27. " iii. 22.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 73

Trees were divided by the ancients into those
of good, and of bad omen. This was regarded as
belonging to the former head, and hence its name.

Ilex.
The Ilex aqui folium, or common Holly, has been
already alluded to v. It was called aquifolia by the
Latins, and crfxlXa^ by the Greeks.

Zizyphus.

The Jujube-tree, Zizyphus vulgaris, seems to be
alluded to by Pliny x when, speaking of exotic fruits,
he particularises the Zizyphus and the Tuber, the
former of which came from Syria, the latter from
Africa.

The fruit of the Zizyphus, he says y, is more like
a berry than an apple, although classed with the
latter. Sibthorp informs us that this is the tree
known in Greece at present by the name of I7a-
Xlovpi, which leads him to regard it as the UaXl-
ovpos of Dioscorides, with which that of Theo-
phrastus appears to agree, only that the former
describes its fruit as consisting of three or four
seeds included in a pod, whilst the latter desig-
nates it as a kind of berry.

The Paliurus aus traits, then, of southern Europe,
P. aculeatus of Decandolle, Zizyphus paliurus of
older botanists, would hardly correspond with the
Paliurus of Pliny and Theophrastus, although the

v p. 13. * Lib. xv. 14.

T Sec "Lectures on Roman Husbandry/' p. 270.

74 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

manner in which Virgil alludes to it in his 5th
Eclogue z, where he says that at the death of Daph-
nis, the Thistle, and the Paliurus with its sharp
thorns, sprang up in the place of the Violet and the
Narcissus, seems to shew, that the Jujube, a tree
prized for its fruit, could not have been there
intended. Sibthorp identifies the Paliurus with
'PapLvos- rpicrcros of Decandolle.

At any rate, the species which Hasselquist con-
sidered the true Christ's Thorn, and which is there-
fore called Zizyphus Spina Christi, must be distin-
guished from either, as having a mucilaginous Drupe
like the Jujube, although of a somewhat different
shape, and not a dry indehiscent fruit, like the
Paliurus australis.

Rhamnus.

Nine species of Rhamnus, or Buckthorn, occur,
according to Sibthorp, in Greece, and as many are
set down by Manetti as found in Italy. The R.
alaternus is the Alaternus of Pliny and Columella,
the (J)vXlkt] of Theophrastus.

Rhamnus infectorius, common in the south of
Europe, especially about Avignon, was much sought
after for its berries, which were hence called Graines
d' Avignon, and were used for dyeing leather yellow.

It has been supposed, that Pliny a alludes to this
or some other species of the same family under
the name of Rhamnus, from the root of which was

■ " Pro moll i viola, pro purpurco narcisso,

Carduus, et spinis Burgit Paliurus acutis."
1 Lib. \.\iv. 76.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 75

prepared the medicament called Lycium, which Sib-
thorp identifies with the Xvklov of Dioscorides,
considering it, in his MS. notes, as derived from
the Rhamnus infectorius, which, he says, agrees very
well with the account given by Dioscorides.

The latter describes this plant as follows: —
" Lycium, which some call Pyxacantha, is a thorny
tree with twigs, three cubits, or even more, in
length, round which are leaves like the box, and
thick. It has a fruit like the pepper, black, thick,
and smooth, a bark of a pale colour like a diluted
solution of its extract, and numerous oblique ligne-
ous roots. It is chiefly found in Cappadocia, Lycia,
&c. ; and loves rugged places. A juice is extracted
from its roots, after many days' maceration with
the stem, by boiling, and then by concentrating the
liquor. It has virtues of an astringent kind, and
is good for the eyes."

Now it is quite possible that this may refer to
a different plant from the Indian Lycium, which he
afterwards alludes to, and which Royle, as I have
already stated, considers to have been extracted
from a Berheris.

But in identifying it with the Rhamnus of modern
botanists, we are met with the difficulty, that the
species of this genus generally possess those pur-
gative properties which are so manifest in our
common Buckthorn, R. catharticus, whilst Avklov
is represented as being astringent.

Hence it has been suggested, that the Rhamnus
of Pliny may be the Zizyphus, Jujuba of modern

76 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

writers, the fruit of which possesses the same
astringent virtues.

But in the first place, Pliny speaks of a species
of Spurge as being astringent, though he describes
it at the same time as a drastic purgative, implying
by the former epithet merely that its taste was
rough and forbidding. And in the second place,
the Rhammis is mentioned by Theocritus as growing
freely in Calabria, the spot in which he places the
scene of his 4th Idyll ; whereas we are told, that
the Jujube was introduced into Italy from Syria
three hundred years later, in the time of Augustus.

In the third place, the 'Pafii/os- of Dioscorides
is stated to have been hung over the doors and
windows of houses to keep out enchantments ; and
this very property is attributed by Ovid to the
Spina alba, or White Thorn, which we have already
identified with the Hawthorn of the present day.

Thus in the Fastih, Janus presents to the god-
dess Carna the White Thorn, as a means of avert-
ing any calamities from her household : —

" Sic fatus, virgam qua tristes pellere possit
A fbribus ne-xas, hcec erat alba, dedit."

And again, farther on, he says : —

" Virgaque Jananis de spina ponitur alba
Qua lumen thalamic parva fenestra dabat."

Now the Zizyphm and the Rliamnus do not pos-
sess white flowers, nor has any protecting influence
of the kind alluded to been ascribed to either.

'■ Otfa Book.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 77

Pliny c speaks of the Rhamnus as a kind of
bramble (Rubus), stating that they have both thorns
which are not hooked, and that one is dark-
coloured, the other whiter. The medicament called
Lycium, he says, may be extracted from either
plant.

Moreover, the very etymology of the word 'Pa/x-
vos favours the idea that it may have been used to
signify any kind of bushy shrub, as it is evidently
an abbreviation of pdSajjivos, a young branch or
sprout.

Upon the whole, then, it seems probable, as
Dumolin has suggested, that the 'Pa/x^o? of the
Greeks was often used, at least by the poets, for
the Hawthorn of the present day, although it must
be confessed, that the prose writers, such as Theo-
phrastus and Dioscorides, speak of the Rhamnus
and the Oxyacantha as distinct. In the old Apo-
logue, in the 9th chapter of Judges, of the trees
choosing a king, the Septuagint translates the
word which we render bramble by 'Pa/x^oy.

There are no drawings of this plant in the
Vienna MS. of Dioscorides.

PlSTACIA.

Even though we were to admit Pliny's authority
for the foreign origin of the Pistachio-nut, Pistacia
vera, which a fact stated further on would lead
one to dispute, other plants belonging to the natural

8 Lib. xxiv. c. 76.

78 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

family of Terebinthacece must be admitted to be in-
digenous in the south of Europe. Amongst these
is the P. lentiscus, a shrub frequent in Greece, in
Sicily, and in Italy, near Nice. In the Island of
Chios this plant affords the resinous substance
called Mastic, which exudes from the bark when
incisions are made in it, and is used, as of old, for
a dentifrice, giving a sweet scent to the breath
when chewed.

Another species is the P. terebinthus, from which
a species of turpentine is obtained, of a more agree-
able odour, and therefore more highly prized, than
the so-called Venice turpentine. Dioscorides calls it
ekaiov fiacTTLyjivov.

Pliny alludes to the P. Lentiscus in several
places, as in lib. xii. 36, and in lib. xiv. 20 ; and
Theophrastus d seems to apply the term ^Lylvos
to the same plant, which also appears to be the
one intended by Theocritus in Idylls v. and vii.

Dioscorides also uses for the Lentiscus the same
name, which must not be confounded with crxoivos,
the Scirpus lioloschoenus of L., according to Sibthorp ;
the Andropogon nardus or schcenanthus of Fee.

Theophrastus0 likewise mentions the P. tcrebin-
thus, under the names of TepefiivOos and Tep/jUvOo?,
noticing the male and the female tree, and stating
that in Mount Ida and in Macedonia it is small,
whilst in Damascus and Syria it is large and fine.
In the latter country whole mountains are covered
by it.

'' Lib. ix. - ' II. PI., iii. I I.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 79

The wood is of a glutinous character, the roots
stout, and penetrating deep into the ground. The
flower is like the Olive, but red. The fruit con-
tains a resinous matter, but not in quantity suffi-
cient to be worth collecting, the resin of the
Terebinth being derived from its wood.

Pliny also alludes to it under the name of Tere-
binthus, in his 13th Book, c. 12, and 24th, c. 18, in
the former of which he describes, much in the same
manner as Theophrastus, the properties of the tree,
and in the latter states its uses in medicine.

Rhus.

At least two species of Bhus, namely Rhus coriaria
and Rhus cotinus, are common in Greece and Italy.
Rhus coriaria, Sibthorp says, is the 'Pour of Dios-
corides, although according to Stackhouse R. co-
tinus is the KoKKvypia of Theophrastus f.

Rhus cotinus was probably not distinguished in
ancient times from the former. Pliny designates
it by the name of Rhus. It yields the Sumach of
commerce, which dyes wool of an orange colour.

Ulex.
Our common Furze, Ulex europceus, does not
seem to have been recognised by ancient writers.
It appears, indeed, not to occur in Greece, and to
be less common in Italy than in the north of
Europe. Pliny g speaks of a plant called ulex, in
appearance like Rosemary, rough and prickly,

f Lib. iii. c. 16. * Lib. xxxiii. 21.

80 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

which, in the process of collecting gold from the
sands of rivers, is well adapted, he says, for arrest-
ing any pieces of the metal that may be carried
away during the washing, so that it was a common
practice to place a layer of it at the bottom of the
trenches along which the water was made to flow.
But it would seem that the early botanists, in iden-
tifying this plant with the Furze of the moderns,
as they have done by assigning that name to the
latter plant, have been somewhat precipitate.

Dumolin contends, that the TJlex of the moderns
was designated in ancient Greece by the term
acriraXaOos.

Theophrastus h describes a plant which he calls
XKop7rlo9, from the irritating character of the wound
produced by its thorns entering the flesh, as being,
except the wild Asparagus, the only one known
which is entirely destitute of leaves, it being com-
posed of thorns, the points of which are at first
white, and afterwards become a little red. It con-
tinues in flower, he says, till after the autumnal
equinox, and is destitute of smell.

This plant Dumolin identifies with the aa7ra\a6os
of Theocritus.

But in the first place, it seems by no means
likely that the aKop7rlos was our Furze, since this
does not occur in Sicily, whilst some of the species
of Spartium arc provided with long and much more
formidable thorns.

Secondly, I do not find that Theophrastus iden-

»* Lib. i. 3.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 81

tifies the (TKopirlos with the ' KairaXaOos : on the
contrary, he places the latter amongst the plants
employed for perfumes.

Dioscorides mentions two kinds of ' AcnraXaOo?,
one with and the other without odour ; and Pliny '
describes Aspalathus as a white thorn, of the size
of a moderate tree, with a flower like the rose,
and a root sought after for ointments ; so that he
must intend a very different plant.

What the Aspalathus of Theocritus may have
been, is therefore still, I conceive, a matter of con-
jecture. The Poet represents it as a thorny plant,
inhabiting the mountains, and couples it with the
'Pa/jivoL, which we have translated, in accordance
with Dumolin, as meaning briars : —

' Eiy opos 6k% epneis, fxt) dvdXuros fpxeo, Barre,
'Ev yap ope i 'Papvoi re kcu 'A<X7rdXa#oi Kopooovri.*'

' Go not to the mountain, 0 Battus, bare-footed,
Eor on the mountain lurk the Ehamni, and the Aspalathi.'

The Spartium villosum and spinosum (or infes-
turn), both occur on the dry hills of Sicily, so
that I prefer upon the whole the identification of
Sibthorp, who, finding that the Spartium villosum
is called ' AcnraXaros in Greece at the present day,
considers this plant to be the 'AcnraXaOos of Dios-
corides, and would therefore probably have agreed
to regard it as the one alluded to by the poet.

1 Lib. xii. c. 52.

G

82 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Spartium.

Spartium was probably confounded by the an-
cients with Genista, and whilst the term Genista, of
which four shrubby species exist in Greece, was
employed by the Latins to designate the several
species comprehended under these two genera, that
of ^.Tvapnov was used by the Greeks, or at least
by Dioscorides. Thus Virgil speaks of the lenta
genista*, and Pliny1 alludes to its use in making
withies. This would seem to refer to the Spartium
junceum, Spanish Broom, so much used in Spain as
a substitute for flax. The Spanish General Espar-
tero obtained his name from this plant, which his
family had maintained themselves by cultivating.

I have already pointed out the probability that
Spartium villosum may have been the aairdXaOo?
of the Greek writers.

Cytisus.
The Cytisus of the moderns, of which Sibthorp
enumerates five shrubby species, has been generally
identified with that mentioned by the writers of
antiquity, but I have shewn in my " Lectures on
Roman Husbandry m" that this is a mistake, and
that the Cytisus of the ancients was in fact the
plant now known by the name of Medic ago arborea.

Ceratonia.
The Carob-tree, or Ceratonia siliqaa, has been
already noticed, p. 2. Pliny alludes to it in lib.

k Georg., ii. 12. ' Lib. xxiv. c. 40. ■ p. 169.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 83

xiii. 16 and xv. 26, under the name of Siliqua,
adding in the former passage that the Ionians called
it Ceraunia, and in the latter describing its pods very
exactly: " Prsedulces siliquaB digitorum hominis
longitudo illis, et interim falcata pollicari latitu-
dine." It has received the name of St. John's
Bread, or Locust-tree, as being, according to some,
the food upon which St. John the Baptist fed.
It is common everywhere in Southern Europe.

Colutea.
Colutea arhorescens, or Bladder Senna, a shrub
common in Italy, and in most parts of Southern
Europe, does not appear to be noticed in ancient
writers, although Theophrastus mentions a plant
by the name of KoXovrea.

Anagyris.
Anagyrisfcetida, a plant found in Greece and Italy,
is noticed by Pliny n under the same name. He
speaks of it as a shrub with an offensive smell,
a flavour like that of the Cabbage, and a seed in
pods of considerable length, like a Kidney-bean.
Dioscorides0 also mentions it under the name of
avdyvpLs and avayvpov.

Coronilla.
Of Coronilla Sibthorp mentions seven species in
Greece, of which only two, emerus and glaaca, are
fruticose. In Italy also the Coronilla emerus alone

" Lib. xxvii. 13. ° M. M. iii. 157.

G 2

SI THE TREES AND SHEUBS [lect.

reaches the dimensions of a shrub. Pliny describes
it under the name of securidaca, and the Greeks
under that of YleXrjKivo?.

Medicago.

The only shrub belonging to this genus has been
shewn to be the Ct/tisus of the ancients p.

PSORALEA.

Psoralea bituminosa is a shrubby plant noticed
by Sibthorp in Greece. It is probable that the
ancient Greeks confounded it with the trefoil
(rplfpvXXou), one species of wThich Dioscoridesq de-
scribes as having the smell of asphalt when old, and
as therefore sometimes called acr(f)a\Tiov. Pliny r
speaks of it as a trefoil distinguished by the name
of Minyanthes or Asphaltum, the former from the
minuteness of the flower, the latter from the na-
ture of its scent.

Anthyllis.

Two shrubby species, Barba Jovis and Hermannice,
are noticed by Sibthorp in Greece, but Manetti
omits any mention of them in Italy, although the
former occurs near Nice.

Pliny 8 describes a shrub, known as Barba Jovis,
Jupiter's Beard, which dislikes water, is employed
in ornamental gardens, is often clipped, and has
a round bushy head with a silvery leaf. This

p See " Roman Husbandry," p. 170. * M. M. iii. 123.

r Lib. xxi. 30. • Lib. xvi. 31.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 85

silvery down which characterizes the leaf of the
plant, has led to its being called argyrophylla, and
to its identification with the former shrub, which
has consequently received from botanists the name
of Anthyllis Barba Jovis.

The Anthyllis cretica, called by Sibthorp Ebenns
cretica, Theophrastus is supposed to allude to*
under the name of 'Efievr) or Kimo-oy. It appears
to be a plant of Oriental origin \

Ononis.

Sibthorp mentions one shrubby species as in-
digenous in Greece, namely, Ononis crisp a ; but it
is probable that the ai/coi/i? of Theophrastus v and
of Dioscorides x was one of the common herbaceous
species — probably the Rest-harrow, which goes by
the name of avaii/ecSa at present in Greece.

Pliny describes the Ononis as a prickly plant,
having thorns on its branches, to which leaves are
attached similar to those of Rue, the stem also
being entirely covered with leaves, in form re-
sembling a garland. It comes up on land newly
ploughed, and is highly prejudicial to the corn,
being long-lived in the extreme.

It is the Ononis antiquorum, the same as, or nearly
allied to, our Rest-harrow, the Ononis arvensis of
British botanists.

Astragalus.
Sibthorp mentions three shrubby species in
Greece, of which one, A. creticus, common in

1 Lib. iv. 4. u Fraas. v vi. 5. » iii. IS.

86 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

mountainous places, is now called rpayaKavda and
rerpayKaOa. Now the former is the name applied
by Theophrastus to a plant growing in Crete, and
also in the Peloponnesus and Media, yielding the
Gum Tragacanth.

Pliny notices it under the name of Tragacantha,
or Goat's Thorn ; the best, he says, is obtained
from Media and Achaia. From several species of
Astragalus at the present day, Gum Tragacanth is
extracted ; and amongst them are the creticus and
aristatus of Sibthorp. Lindley pronounces the
former to be the Ylorr/pLOv of Dioscorides, the latter
his T pdyoLKavOa7 . It is probable that they were
often confounded.

Hedysarum.

One species of shrub belonging to this genus
is mentioned by Sibthorp in Greece, namely,
H. AlhagL It is a plant rather of the East than
of Europe, Greece being probably its most western
locality.

Another species of the same genus has been
supposed to be the Onobrychis of Pliny2, but this
appears rather doubtful.

Lotus.

This genus usually consists of herbaceous plants,

but Sibthorp mentions one shrubby species in

Greece, Lotus Dort/cnium. It is not known by

what name this plant was distinguished in ancient

y Bot. Reg. L840, Misc. j>. 38. ■ Lib. xxiv. c. 98.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 87

Greece. The Lotus of the Lotophagi, celebrated in
the 9th Book of the Odyssey, —

" Ta>v d' os tis \coro7o (fidyoi /zeAi^Sea Kapnov,
Ovkct dnayyeWai ndXiu rj6e\ev ovde veeadai,
AXX avrov (3ov\ovto per di>8pdo~i Aa>To(pdyoicriv
Acorov iptnTopevoi pevep,ev, vocttqv re \a6eu6ai, —

"Aud whoso tasted of their flowery meat
Cared riot with tidings to return, but clave
Fast to that tribe, for ever fain to eat,
Reckless of home return, the tender Lotus sweet," —

and dwelt upon by Tennyson in his beautiful poem
of that name, seems to have been the Rhamnus
lotus of Dec, called Nebek in Syria and Palestine,
and still a favourite food amongst the Bedouins.

But with regard to the other kinds of Lotus
alluded to in ancient wTriters, I have only room
to refer my readers to the elaborate discussion on
the subject introduced by M. Fee into his Flore
de Virgile.

Acacia.

In my " Lectures on Roman Husbandry a," I have
noticed that the term Acanthus is sometimes applied
to the Acacia ; a genus, however, which though
noticed by Virgil, does not appear to have been
ever naturalized in Italy, the Acacias now culti-
vated in the south of Europe being derived from
the New World.

In Greece Acacia Farnesiana occurs, but it has
been introduced in modern times.

* p. 241.

88 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Rosa.

I have already alluded to the Rose in my " Lec-
tures on Roman Husbandry V

Rubus.

Sibthorp mentions four species of Rubus as oc-
curring in Greece, three of which, namely, R. ulceus,
the Raspberry, R. ccesius, the Dewberry, and R.
fruticosus, the common shrubby Bramble, are
shrubby. They all went by the name of Baroy,
but the Raspberry was distinguished by the epithet
I8a?a. The same species exist in Italy, but only
in mountainous situations in both countries.

Pliny0 also mentions three varieties of Rubus, but
one of them, which he calls ct/nosbatus, and which,
he says, bears a flower like the Rose, is the Dog-
rose. Another, which; he says, bears mulberries,
is the Rubus fruticosus, which yields our common
blackberries ; and the third, which derives its name
from Mount Ida, where it principally grows, is our
Raspberry.

Dioscoridesd speaks of the Raspberry in much
the same manner.

Prunus.

Four fruticose species are mentioned by Sib-
thorp, but the only two which can be identified
with ancient names are Pr. spinosa, the Sloe, and
Pr. prostrata, a low shrub which covers the highest

b p. 234. ' Lib. xvi. c. To. d Dc Hi. M. iv. 38.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 89

summits of Ida, Crete, Parnassus, &c. with its fo-
liage, soon after the snow has disappeared.

The Sloe is identified by Fraas with the ^ircoSta^
of Theophrastus6, and with the dyploKOKKVfirjXea
of Dioscorides f ; the P. prostrata with the Chamw-
cerasus of Pliny ; but Sibthorp is more cautious in
both instances. The other two shrubby species do
not appear to have been noticed. Pyrus domestica
(Sib.), Sorbus domestica (Dec), our Service-tree, may
have been alluded to by Theophrastus g under the
name of 'Our;, of which bvov wTas the fruit.

Virgil h speaks of a kind of cider being made
from it : —

" Ferrnento atque acidis imitantur vitea sorbis."

By Pliny, Malus, Pomum, and Prunus are often
used indiscriminately. See farther, under "Laurus."

Amygdalus.
Two dwarf Almonds, A. nana and incana, occur
in Greece, but are not pointed out by ancient
writers.

Poterium.
A shrubby species, P. spinosum, occurs on the dry
hills of Greece and the Archipelago, near the sea,
and is supposed by Sibthorp to be the Xroifirj of
Dioscorides, a name which its present vernacular
appellation, ' Acrrolfir] , confirms. The word ^Iroifir}
also occurs in Theophrastus, and the corresponding
one, Stobe, in Pliny.

e Theoph. iii. 7. l Lib. i. c. 174.

s Lib. iii. c. 12. h Georg. iii. 380.

90 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Mespilus.

Sibthorp enumerates four species of shrubs be-
longing to this genus, regarding the M. pyracantha
as the "0£voLKav6a of Dioscorides. The latter name,
it is well known, has been appropriated by modern
botanists to our White Thorn, the Spina alba of the
Romans, as has been above alluded to.

Pyrus.

Four frutescent species are described by Sibthorp,
none of which have been identified by him, but
Fraas considers that one, viz. the P. salicifolia,
which is the commonest of all in Greece, is in-
tended by the ' A\pa$ of Theophrastus and Dios-
corides, and it is now called a^Xabia; whilst an-
other, the Pyrus aria, is conjectured to be the 'Ap la
of Theophrastus l.

Of the seven trees belonging to this genus, one,
the Pyrus communis, our cultivated Pear-tree, was
known to the Greeks under the name of o\v7) ;
P. malus, the Apple, was the MrjXea or 'AypLopajXa
of Dioscorides, by which latter name it is known
at the present day in Greece ; P. cydonia, the Quince,
was the Kvdoovia /xr/Aa of Theophrastus and Dios-
corides.

Tama nix.

Tamarix Gallica is a shrub which occurs com-
monly in Greece and Italy, and to which Pliny j

1 Lib. iii. c. 4. J Lib. xiii. 37

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 91

alludes under the name of Myrice, stating that
some persons call it Tamarix ; but it is probable,
as Fee says, that several species of Tamarisk were
comprehended by the ancients under this title.

Sibthorp has identified this plant with the Mvpl/tr/
of Dioscorides k ; Pliny, however, states that the
Mi/rice is also known as the Urica, and this agrees
pretty well with the drawing of the plant given
in the Vienna MS.

Dumolin concludes, that it was employed as
a generic term for any kind of Heath, and was only
applied to the Tamarisk because the ancients con-
founded the latter with that description of shrub.

PcIBES.

Both the rough and smooth-skinned Gooseberry
occur in the mountains of Greece (Sibthorp), and
in addition to these the Black and Red Currant,
and the R. petrceum or Rock Currant, in Italy ;
but it is curious that no such plant has been
noticed by the writers of antiquity, and the name
itself is derived from an acidulous vegetable men-
tioned by the Arabian physicians, and now believed
to be a kind of Rhubarb.

Bupleurum.

Two shrubby species are noticed by Sibthorp in
Greece, viz. B.fruticosum, and B. Sibthorpianiun, the
former of which he identifies with the XeaeXc alOlo-
ttlkov of Dioscorides.

k Lib. i. c. 105.

92 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia coronarius is not noticed by Sib-
thorp as occurring in Greece, but it grows in the
north of Italy. It is called the Mock Orange, from
its scent, but is not mentioned by Pliny or Theo-
phrastus. The tyiXafteXtyov spoken of by Athenseus1
would seem to have been quite a different plant,
so named from its branches inosculating so as to
form one united and compact brotherhood, and
thus to be well fitted for composing a stout hedge.
This description certainly does not apply to the
shrub referred to.

Sempervivum.

One arborescent species, S. arboreum, was found
by Sibthorp in Cyprus, and this he has identified
with the *Ae/£ft>o*> to fieya of Dioscorides.

A much commoner species, however, Sempervivum
tectorum, corresponds better with the description
given by ancient writers of the latter plant.

Theophrastus describes the aeifaov as a plant
which continues ever juicy and green, has fleshy,
smooth, long leaves, grows on the ground, and
even on tiles — wherever, in short, the smallest
quantity of soil exists for its roots to penetrate.

Dioscorides speaks of three species of 'Aeltcoov,
the largest an evergreen with fleshy leaves, at top
pointed like a tongue, below concave, and with a
stem a cubit in height ; it is found on the moun-
tains as well as on the roofs of houses ; the second,
1 DeipnoiophistCBf lib. xv. c. 29.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 93

a smaller one, found on walls and rocks, with
small round pointed leaves, and pale-green flowers ;
a third kind, the one called by some avhpayvr),
and by others Trj\e(piop, with small, thicker, and
rough leaves.

Pliny m also describes two kinds of Aizoum. The
larger of these grows on the roofs of houses, exceeds
a cubit in height, and is somewhat thicker than the
thumb ; at the extremity bearing leaves which are
in shape like a tongue, fleshy, full of juice, and
about as broad as a person's thumb. Some are
bent downwards to the ground, whilst others stand
upright, in their outline resembling an eye in shape.
Hence the name Buphthalmus sometimes applied to
it. The smaller kind grows upon walls, old rubbish,
and tiled roofs. Its leaves are narrow, pointed,
and juicy, the stem a palm in height.

It is evident that Pliny and Dioscorides refer to
the same plant, and as the Sempervivum arboreum
does not exist in Italy, and is rare even in Greece,
the common Houseleek was the plant commonly in-
tended under the name 'Aelfaov to peya, although
it is quite possible that the former may have been
sometimes confounded with it.

Myrtus.

The Myrtle, so luxuriant in Italy, and capable of

cultivation even in our northern regions, seems to

have been known from the earliest times. In fact,

this plant, as well as the Pistachio-nut, have both

m Lib. xxt. c. 102.

94 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

been found amongst the Tuffs of Mount Etna, which
are anterior to the formation of the mountain itself.
We, of course, assume, that the cultivated Myrtle
was the plant commonly known as such at pre-
sent, but the wild one may have been some
plant of the Ruscus family, such as our Butcher's
Broom, the Ruscus aculeatus of botanists, a plant of
very different affinities, but sufficiently resembling
the Myrtle in outward appearance to be confounded
with it.

Sibthorp notices the Myrtle as common in
Greece, and identifies it with the Mvpalvr] of
Dioscorides. The fruit, he says, is eaten by the
modern, as it was by the ancient Athenians.

Hedera.

Our common Ivy abounds both in Greece and
Italy. Theophrastus n mentions it under the name
of kltto9, and Dioscorides under that of Kicrcro?,
whilst Pliny0, who gives it the name of Udera,
presents us with a long description of its several
kinds, which corresponds in most respects with
that given by Theophrastus.

Both specify two kinds, male and female, each of
which is subdivided into the White, the Black, and
the Helix. It is probable that all these are varieties
of our common Ivy, but it is difficult to identify the
descriptions given by ancient writers with any of
those recognised at present.

The Helix, which they represent as barren, is

■ Hist. PI., iii. IV ° Lib. xvi. c. 02.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 95

only the trailing variety of the plant, which in that
condition bears no fruit.

The Black Ivy, Pliny states, sometimes bears
a seed of a saffron colour, which is used for chap-
lets, and is known as the Ivy of Nysa, in Syria.

Now the variety with yellow berries, Royle tells
us, is the one most common in the Himalayas,
where it may be seen clinging to the rocks, and
clasping the Oaks, so that we can readily believe
the account given of Alexander in his Indian expe-
dition having been crowned with it. Tournefort,
in his "Travels in the Levant," informs us that
the variety with the yellow berries is as common at
Constantinople as the other kind.

In Greece and Rome it was used to decorate the
thyrsus of Bacchus, as commemorative of the march
of the god through that country.

Sambucus.

Three species of Elder, or Sambucus, are noticed
by Sibthorp as occurring in Greece, and the same
number is found in Italy ; S. nigra and S. race-
mosa being common to both ; S. ebulus found only
in Greece, and S. laciniata in Italy — the latter, how-
ever, is a variety of racemosa. Sibthorp identifies
S. ebulus, or Dwarf Elder, with the Xa/maiaKTr) of
Dioscorides ; and S. nigra, common Elder, with the
aKTT) of that author.

Pliny p says there are two kinds of Sambucus,

p Lib. xxiv. c. 35.

96 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT.

one of which grows wild, and is much smaller
than the other, and is called by the Greeks Chamce-
acte or Helix. In iib. xvi. c< 42> he mentions ^

SambucuB as one of the best of trees for timber • and
in lib. xv. c. 34, he alludes to the fruit of the Sam-
bums as hanging upon stalks and branches united
-the meaning of which is not very clear,-com-
paring it in this respect to the Ivy.

Theophrastus, however, enters more fully into
a description of this plant*, describing it as thriving
especially, but not exclusively, in watery places.

This, then, is the larger kind of Elder noticed
by anc.ent naturalists, including no doubt all the
species indigenous in the south of Europe ex
cepting the 8. ebulus, which is clearly pointed out
by Dioscondes as a dwarf kind, resembling in
its flowers and fruit the common one. To this
Virgil, in his 10th Eclogue, plainly alludes, when
he speaks of the Ebulus and its red berries :—

"Pan, deus Arcadias, venit, quern vidimus ipsi
Sanguinis ebuli baccia minioque rubentem."

LONICERA.

Although five species of Honeysuckle are no-
ticed as occurring in Greece, and no less than nine
m Italy, ,t is difficult to say by what names they
wore recognised in ancient times.

Pliny ' describes a plant called Clymenos, with
leaves like the Ivy, numerous branches, and a

< H. PI, i. 6, and iii. J 2.

r Lib. xxy. c. 33.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 97

hollow stem, having a powerful smell and berries
like those of the Ivy, growing in wild and moun-
tainous countries. This may possibly be the
Honeysuckle of modern botanists ; but the KAJ-
ixevov and YlepLKXvjxevov of Dioscorides, Sibthorp
is disposed to regard as the Convolvulus arvensis, and
C. sepium, of modern botanists.

Dumolin conjectures that a plant named AtyiAos
by Theocritus was the Honeysuckle —

Tcu fiev e'/zai Kvricruu re Kai Ai'yiAoi' aiyes edovn,
Kai "2)(ivov nareovTi, Kai iv Kofxdpouri Ke^vurai s.

' For my goats browse upon the Cytisus and the iEgilos,
aud feed upon the Schinus, and lie amongst the
Comari.'

This plant is also alluded to by Babrius in his
Fables* as inhabiting the mountains.

But the chief ground for identifying it with the
Honeysuckle is that both plants are regarded as
a favourite food for goats, whence our English
Honeysuckle is called L. caprifolium. This, how-
ever, seems scarcely sufficient to warrant the name
being assigned to it.

Scabiosa.
One species, viz. S. pterocephala, occurring in
Greece, is shrubby, but we are unable to refer to
it any plant named by classical writers.

Ernodea.
The only shrub mentioned by Sibthorp in Greece
as belonging to the Madder family is the Ernodea

* Idyl. v. ver. 128. l Fab. iii. v. 3.

H

98 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

montana, which is found amongst the mountains
of Crete.

It is the same as the Jsperula caldbrica of L.,
the Slier ardia foetida of Lamarck, but it cannot be
identified with any classical plant.

Conyza.

Foul* shrubby species are noticed by Sibthorp,
one of which, C. Candida, he suspects to be the
"ApKTLov of Dioscorides. but the description given
of the latter hardly bears out this conjecture.

Santolina.

Several species of this evergreen under-shrub are
mentioned in Sibthorp as occurring in Greece, and
one of them, Santolina maritima, is supposed by
Sprengel to be the Gnaphalium chamcezelon of Pliny u,
which he describes as having soft white leaves, and
as being used as flocks for beds. Sibthorp speaks
doubtfully as to its being the Tvatydkiov of Dios-
corides. Santolina chamcecyparissus is a common
shrub in Italy, often met with in our gardens under
the name of Lavender Cotton.

Dumolin endeavours to identify this plant with
the HoKiov of Theophrastus v and Dioscorides x,
and the Polion of Pliny y.

Artemisia.
Of this Sibthorp mentions one frutescent species
only as occurring in Greece, namely, A. arborescens,

u Lib. xxvii. 61, v Lib. i. c. 10.

■ Lib. iii. c. 114. f Lib. xxi. c. 20, 21, 84.

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 99

the apTe/jucria of Dioscorides. Manetti enumerates
two in Italy, viz. Abrotanum and Santonica.

Pliny z also specifies two, the Santonica and the
Pontica, both superior, he says, to the Italian.
They were used, as at present, as a stomachic in-
fused in wine, for which purpose Apicius intro-
duces the plant into the materials for a banquet,
recommending it to be procured from Camerina,
or else from Pontus a.

Theophrastus and Dioscorides call it a\\riv6iov,
and both represent the Pontic as the best.

Senecio.

Sibthorp mentions one shrubby species of this
genus, namely, S.fruticulosus, but it is not noticed
by Manetti as occurring in Italy.

It is, however, improbable, that this species is
alluded to in any ancient writer.

Pliny b says, that the plant called 'Hpiyepov
by the Greeks is the Senecio of the Romans, both
words having reference to the hoary appearance
of the head of flowers when they begin to seed.
It has the appearance, he says, and the softness
of Trixago or Chamcedri/s, a plant which has been
identified with the Teucrium chamcedrys of modern
botanists. It has small reddish-coloured stems,
and is found growing on walls and on the tiled
roofs of houses. Its name is derived from rjp,

1 Lib. xxvii. c. 28. * Dierbach, Flora Jpiciana, Heidelberg, 1831.

b Lib. xxv. c. 106.

H 2

100 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

spring, and yepcov, aged, because it is white in the
spring. Its head is divided into a number of downy
filaments {Spina) protruding like a thistle ; hence
it is called by Callimachus Acanthus, and by others
Pappus.

This description agrees very well with some of
the herbaceous sorts of Senecio, such as our common
Groundsel, except as to its turning white, or going
to seed, in the spring. It must be recollected,
however, that in warm climates, like Greece, it
would come to seed earlier than with us.

Gnaphalium.

Two species of shrubby plants belonging to this
genus are mentioned by Sibthorp, the best known
of which is G. staechas, also called Helichrysum stoe-
chas, which occurs both in Greece and in Italy.

In Greece at present this plant is known by the
name of afxapavOov (everlasting), one of those which
Dioscorides assigned to it. This author states, that
it is synonymous with 'KXi^pvaov and Xpvo-av-
Oepiov, both expressive of the yellow colour of its.
petals ; adding, that it is used for chaplets, has a
small yellowish white stem, erect and stout, leaves
scattered like the ' ' Afiporovov, a blossom {KOfxrjv)
orbicular, of a golden yellow colour, spreading out
in all directions like a parasol, and bearing a re-
semblance to dry clusters of flowers, together with
a slender root.

Theophrastus states that it has golden-coloured

in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 101

flowers, a whitish leaf, a white hard stem, and
a superficial thin root. The description given by
Pliny I omit, as it is much the same as those above
given, though less exact than that of Dioscorides.

We may, therefore, admit that Gnaphalium stoechas
was at least one of the plants designated by the
name of everlasting, and that it corresponded with
the Helichrfjsum of Pliny. The latter, however,
must not be confounded with the 'EAecoxpvcros' of
Theophrastus c, or with the Heliochrysos of Pliny d.
Both these are wild meadow-plants, flowering in
the spring, and Theophrastus associates the one
he names with that species of Anemone which he
calls limonia.

Hence Dumolin with reason conjectures, that
it may have been the Caltha palustris of our
meadows.

St^ehelina.

Two frutescent species are noticed by Sibthorp,
but neither can be identified with ancient names,
although the plant he calls Pteronia clwmwpeuce,
which other botanists consider as a Stceheltna, may
perhaps be the one designated by Dioscorides e by
the name of yaiiouTrevKr).

Centaurea.

Amongst the twenty species of Centaury enu-
merated by Sibthorp, one only, viz. 0. spinosa, is

c Lib. vi. c. 7. d Lib. xxi. c. 38. * Lib. iv. c. 125.

102 THE TREES AND SHRUBS, &c. [lect. hi.

frutescent. This one, however, does not figure in
Manetti's Catalogue.

Three kinds of Centaury are mentioned by Pliny f.
The larger, called Chironium, as being believed to be
the plant by which the Centaur Chiron was cured,
has been identified by the older botanists with the
Centaur ea Centaurium of L., but it seems to me
quite uncertain to which particular plants this
and the other two kinds alluded to by Pliny refer.

Cineraria.

Sibthorp mentions one shrubby species in Greece,
viz. maritima, but does not identify it with any
ancient name. The same also occurs in Italy, but
we are unable to point to any plant noticed by the
writers of antiquity with which it can be referred.

f Lib. xxv. c. 30.

LECTUKE IV.

SHRUBS OF GREECE AND ITALY BELONGING TO
THE FOLLOWING GENERA:—

erica rhododendron azalea vaccinium ligustrum

phillyrea jasminum conyolyulus lithosper-

mum onosma — origanum teucrium periploca —

solanum lycium yerbascum phlomis rosmarinus

satureia— lavandula salyia thymus — molucella

prasium — stachys — yitex — salsola — salicornia —

atriplex polygonum laurus daphne — passerina

— osyris el.eagnus aristolochia — euphorbia —

buxus — ephedra — asparagus — aloe — ruscus — smilax.
eemarks on the decay of species. concluding ob-
servations.

Erica.

CIBTHORP enumerates six species of Heaths,

including that now called Calluna vulgaris, as

occurring in Greece, and the same species are

common in Italy. Of these he identifies one, viz.

the herbacea or carnea, with the ipeiKT) of Dios-

corides, but it is probable that all the kinds of

Heath observed were included by the latter under

this denomination. This author describes his ipelKrj

as a shrubby or bushy tree like the Tamarisk

(fivpiKT]), but much smaller, remarking that the

honey which bees suck from its flower is far

from good.

It seems probable, as has been already stated

under the head of Tamarisk, that the word MvpUrj

was often applied to the larger kinds of Heaths,

1(U THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

such as the Erica arbor ea, and that the Myrica of
Virgil may merely indicate Heather, although the
absence of the Ulex europceus from Sicily (Gussone)
forbids us to extend the same to the fivpUr] of
Theocritus.

Rhododendron and Azalea.

The Rhododendron does not occur in Greece,
but is common on the borders of the Euxine, and
has been supposed to communicate those noxious
properties to the honey of that country, of which
Xenophona speaks. Pliny b also seems to indicate,
that it produces madness in those who partake of
it : stating that this property is attributable to the
flowers of a plant he calls Rhododendron, which
the bees frequent.

In the preceding chapter, however, having first
mentioned that at Heraclea, in Pontus, the honey
is very poisonous, he goes on in the succeeding
paragraph to give it as his opinion, that the poison
is extracted from a plant found in that country,
called " cegolethron" because it is fatal to beasts
of burden, and to goats in particular.

The word " Rhododendron" however, Pliny, in lib.
xvi. c. 33, uses as an equivalent to the " Nerium"
or Rhododaphne, which he describes as an ever-
green, bearing a near resemblance to the Rose,
throwing out numerous branches from the stem,
and to brutes poisonous, although to man an anti-
dote against the venom of serpents. Now this latter

' Anabasis, iv. 3, b Lib. xxi. c. 45.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 105

term, and the corresponding one, Nrjpiov or *Po5o-
§ev8pov of Dioscorides, are identified by Sib thorp
with the Nerium oleander, a very common shrub
in Greece, as well as in most parts of the south
of Europe, so that Pliny must have confounded
these two plants. It has been generally supposed
that the one which rendered the honey of Pontus
noxious wras the Rhododendron ponticum ; this, how-
ever, is entirely harmless, and the shrub really
intended must have been the Azalea pontica, the
Chamcerhododendros of Tournefort c, which has the
reputation at present of rendering honey narcotic,
and of poisoning the goats, swine, and sheep that
browze upon its leaves d.

Vaccinium.

I have alluded in my "Roman Husbandry6" to
the probability that the Vaccinium of the ancients
was not the same plant as the Bilberry, or the
Vaccinium myrtillus, of the present day, but the
Hyacinth. Fee combats this opinion f, but is
driven to suppose that the Greeks recognised two
Hyacinths, the first red, the Lilium martagon of L. ;
the second black, which was the Vaccinium myr-
tillus. The latter, however, does not grow in watery
places, which Pliny says is the case with the Vac-
cinium. Theophrastus seems to refer to the Bil-
berryg, under the name of afjLTreXos rrj? 'ISrj?, but

(! Voyage au Levant, vol. ii. p. 226. d See also "Bot. Magazine,"
p. 433. e p. 26G. f Fl. Virg. e H. pi. iil. 17.

106 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Sibthorp, who notices the V. myrtillus as occurring
in the mountains of Bithynia, does not identify it
with any of the plants mentioned by Dioscorides.

LlGUSTRUM.

The Ligustrum vulgare, or Privet, is a common
shrub both in Greece and Italy, but I have pointed
outh that there is reason to doubt, whether the
Ligustrum of Virgil does not mean a different plant,
although it probably was intended by Pliny and
Columella to indicate the one now commonly
known by that name.

Phillyrea.
Two species are noticed by Sibthorp, and four
by Manetti. Of these the latifolia, as has been
already stated, is identified with the (ptXXvpea of
Dioscorides ; but it is not probable that the other
species were distinguished from it.

Jasminum.
Although the common Jasmine, Jasminum offici-
nale, is so abundant in most parts of Europe,
and especially in Greece and the Levant, it does
not appear to have been known to the ancients,
and its native country is probably Arabia, from
which, according to Forskahl1, its name is derived.

Convolvulus.
Three shrubby species are mentioned by Sib-
thorp ; and one, C. cncorum, is noticed by Manetti.
11 Roman Husbandry, p. 239. ' Fl. JEgypt, .imh.y v. no.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 107

But it is probable tbat the plant alluded to by
Pliny under the name of Convolvulus, and compared
by him to a Lily, is one of the common herbaceous
species, perhaps C. septum, which Dioscorides says
winds round trees, and in summer forms entire
arbours. He calls it oyxZAaf Xela.

LlTHOSPERMUM.

Two shrubby species are noticed by Sibthorp,
viz. L. fruticosum and hispidulum, but in Italy they
appear all to be herbaceous. Pliny k and Dios-
corides l both speak of a plant called in Latin
Lithospermum, and in Greek AiOocnrep/jLov, from
the hard, stonv character of its seeds.

It has been suggested that the description agrees
better with Coix lachryma, but as this is an Indian
plant, it will be safer to adhere to the common
opinion, that it is one or other of the species of
Lithospermum, found in Italy and Greece, though
which of them the descriptions of these writers is
not sufficiently precise to enable us to pronounce.

Onosma.

Sibthorp mentions a shrubby species of this genus
under the name of 0. frutlcosa.

The old botanists have given to this genus the
name applied by Pliny m to a plant which he de-
scribes too concisely to admit of identification. Nor
does Dioscorides" assist us further, in speaking of
the same plant under the Greek name of ' Ovoo-jxa.

k Lib. xxvii. c. 74. ' M. M. iii. 148.

■ Lib. xxvii. c. 86. " M. M. iii. 137.

108 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Origanum.

Sibthorp only specifies two shrubby species,
viz. Tournefortii and Dictamnus. The latter is the
AUra/jn'os' of Dioscorides, but it is probable that
they were both confounded with the other kinds
of Origanum, which appear to have had the same
name in ancient times as at present, viz. 'Opiyavov,
corrupted in modern Greek to piyavi.

Origanum majorana, a common species in Italy,
seems to have been distinguished by the name
Amaracus by the Romans, and ^d/xyjrvxov by the
Greeks. See "Roman Husbandry," p. 272, where
by mistake the word lampsana is substituted for
sampsucum.

Teucrium.

Ten shrubby species are enumerated by Sibthorp,
none of which are included in Manetti's list.

Teucrium flavum has been supposed to be alluded
to by Dioscorides0 under the name of TevKplov,
which, he says, is also called Xafialdpv?, as this
plant goes by the name of xafxaibpva at the pre-
sent day.

Teucrium polium is supposed to be the Ylokiov
of Dioscorides11, and the Folium of Pliny q, who
describes one kind from the mountains as a shrub
a cubit high, white, having a head of flowers
on the top of a corymb like grey hair, with a
heavy but not disagreeable smell ; and the other
larger, with not so powerful an odour, and inferior

• iii. 111. '' iii. 121. « wi. 21.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 109

in medicinal efficacy. The smaller Polium may be
Teucrium montanum ; the larger one T. polium.

I have, however, already pointed out that Du-
molin maintains that the YloXiov of the Greeks,
and the Polium alluded to by Pliny, was the Santo-
lina chamcecyparissus of modern botanists.

Periploca.
Periploca grceca is a native of Bithynia and
Mount Athos, and occurs also in Italy, but it was
probably confounded with other climbing plants —
Clematis, Bryony, &c. — by the ancient writers, as
there are no remarkable qualities by which their
attention would be directed towards it.

Solanum.

Of the three species of Nightshade observed by
Sibthorp in Greece, the S. dulcamara is a climber,
S. nigrum -,an annual, and the third, S. sodomeum,
a shrub. The first and second are common also
in Italy.

S. sodomeum, found by Sibthorp in Sicily, of
which a splendid figure is given in the Flora Grceca,
is a native of Africa and Syria. It obtained its
name from being regarded as the plant which
Hasselquist had identified with that bearing the
famous apples of Sodom, described by Josephus and
by Tacitus as fair to the eye, but wThen plucked,
dissolving into dust and ashes r.

r In the Book of Wisdom, x. 7, we read, " Of whose wickedness
even in this day the waste land that smoketh is a testimony, and
plants bearing fruit that never came to ripeness."

110 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

But for this identification, Sib thorp must be re-
garded as an insufficient authority, as he never
visited the Holy Land, and the species commonly
met with at the Dead Sea, is the Solarium coagulans
of Linnseus, the Sanctum of Forskahl, and the Hiero-
chunticum of Dunal, described by the latter in De-
candolle's Prodromus. Robinson, therefore, in his
"Biblical Researches8," appears to be mistaken in
naming it the S. melongena, a name given by modern
botanists to a whole section of the Solanece, and
not to the particular species which represents the
true apple of Sodom ; nor does he seem warranted
in adopting the suggestion originally thrown out
by Seetzen \ that the latter plant was an Asclepias.

It is true, that the Asclepias gigantea or procera,
the 0 slier of the Arabs, is found in a few places
on the borders of the Dead Sea, and its fruit when
opened contains nothing but a dusty powder. Ac-
cording to Robinson, too u, it resembles a large
smooth apple or orange, hanging in clusters of
three or four together, and when ripe of a yellow
colour ; if so, differing greatly from other mem-
bers of the Asclepias tribe, whose seed-vessel cer-
tainly bears no sort of resemblance to either of
these fruits.

But I am assured on good authority, that the
Asclepias alluded to is an extremely rare plant in

• Vol. i. p. 522.

1 See Kitto'fl "Physical History of the Holy Land."
■ See Robinson's "Physical Geography of the Holy Land," 18C5,
p. 216.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. Ill

that locality, whilst the Solanum is very common ;
and the interior of the Apple of the Solanum just
mentioned is likewise, it is said, frequently con-
verted into a powder like dust, through the punc-
ture of an insect x.

Upon the whole, then, I am inclined to adhere
to the older notion that the latter was the plant
intended.

Pliny7 says, that the Solanum is the same as
the Strychnon or Trychnon, which latter he describes
as rather a woolly shrub than a herb, with large
follicles, broad and turbinated, and a good-sized
berry within, ripening in November. This would
seem to be the Physalis alkekengi.

Another kind of Strychnon he calls halicacabum :
one variety of which possesses, he says, narcotic
qualities, and produces death more speedily than
Opium ; whilst another is esteemed as an article
of food.

As to the first variety, which species of Solanum,
or of the allied genera Jtropa and Mandragora, was
intended, must be open to doubt, for the Atropa
belladonna, which is a very rare plant in Greece,
and not noticed by Sibthorp, seems to be men-
tioned by Theophrastus z under the name of Ma*>-
Spayopas, and described as having a lofty stem
like the vapOrj^ Ferula communis : so that the

1 The berry of the S. sodomeum Sibthorp describes as, " Intus
viscida, amara, nauseosa, demum pulverulenta, sicca, friabilis, unde,
ut videtur, nomen specificum."

y Lib. xxi. 105. z H. PI. vi. 2.

112 THE TREES AND SHRUBS Tlect.

L

liavftpayopa of this author would differ from that
of Dioscorides, which is the true Mandrake a.

The edible variety may be one of that section
of the Solarium tribe, distinguished by the name
of Melongena, to which belongs the Aubergine, now
a common article of food in the southern parts
of Europe.

Lyctum.

Two species of this climbing shrub, viz. L. bar-
barum and L. europeum, are mentioned by Sibthorp,
who identifies the latter with the 'Pd/nvo? of Dios-
corides. This, however, does not seem consistent
with the opinion he expresses, as already stated
under the head of Rhamnus, that the Avklov of
Dioscorides was extracted from the Rhamnus in-
fectorius. Although not adopting this conclusion,
I cannot identify the modern Lycium with the
Ltjcium of the ancients, as the former is wholly
destitute of any medicinal virtues.

Verbascum.

One species, viz. V. spinosum, is mentioned by
Sibthorp as occurring in mountainous places in
Crete. This, however, cannot be supposed to
have been distinguished by the ancients from the
herbaceous species which abound in Greece. To
these the term 0Ao/^O9 is applied in the Romaic ;
and this alone would lead us to infer that the
(JjAo/jlo? mentioned by Dioscorides b, of which he

■ See " Roman Husbandly," p. 274. b iv. 103.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 113

notices two kinds, white and black, was this plant.
Now Pliny c informs us, that the (f)Xofio^ of the
Greeks was the Verbascum of the Romans.

It wTas not without reason, therefore, that the
old botanists gave this latter name to our common
Mullein.

Phlomis.

Three species of Phlomis are mentioned by Sib-
thorp as occurring in Greece, but of these only
one, P. fruticosa, is a shrub. It is identified by
Sibthorp wTith the (pAofio? aypla of Dioscorides d,
which, therefore, would be a different plant from
either of the two kinds mentioned above, and re-
ferred to Verbascum. It may be the Phlomis of
Pliny e, which he distinguishes from Phlomus above
noticed.

The Roman naturalist describes two varieties,
both being hairy plants with rounded leaves, and
but slightly elevated above the ground. It is very
doubtful, however, whether this be a true iden-
tification.

Rosmarinus.
The common Rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis, is
noticed by Sibthorp as occurring in a few places
in Greece, and it is met with likewise in Italy.
We might expect, therefore, to see it noticed by
ancient writers, and Sibthorp considers that it is
the KifiavcDTis of the ancient Greeks, as it is known

c Lib. xxviii. c. 13. d Lib. iv. 101. e Lib. xxv. 73.

I

114 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

by the name of AevftpoXifiavov at the present day.
Pliny describes the Libanotis, also, as he says, called
Rosmarhium, as having a root like to that of the
Olusatrum, and a smell nowise differing from frank-
incense ; Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, all speak of it,
the first under the name of Ros, the two latter
under that of Rosmarinum. Columella f says that
it is a good food for bees.

Satureia.

Five species of Savory occurring in Greece rise
to the height of a shrub, but of these one only
extends to Italy, viz. S. montana. S. Thymbra is
identified with the Thymbra of Pliny, and the
Qvfxfipa of Dioscorides ; it is a favourite plant
with the bees, and grows on Hymettus along with
another fruticose species of the same genus, viz.
S. capitatag, the Qvfios of Dioscorides, which is
traceable in the modern term Qv/mo or Ovfiapc.

Lavandula.

Three species of Lavender are noted by Sibthorp,
all three low shrubs, and in Italy one only, namely,
L. spica. Pliny mentions a herb called Stoechas h :
describing it as an odoriferous plant, with leaves
like the Hyssop, and with a bitter taste. Diosco-
rides speaks of it under the name of (rrolxa?,
and Sibthorp identities this with the L. stoeclias
which he describes. From its abundance on the

1 ix 4. * Sibthorp. '' Lib. xxvi. c. 27, aixl xxvii. 107.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 115

islands near Hieres, in France, the latter were
called by the ancients Stoechades. The word Lavan-
dula does not occur in any Classical writer.

Salvia.

Sibthorp enumerates no less than twenty species
of Salvia, of which, however, only three are shrubs,
viz. S. officinalis \ pomifera, and calycina. In Italy
the only shrubby species is S. officinalis. This is
identified by Sibthorp with the iXeXiatyoiKov of
Dioscorides, described by him in the 3rd Book
of his M. Mj, and by Pliny ^ as possessing a power-
ful smell ; adding, that it is considered to be the
same as his Salvia, a plant like to Mint in appear-
ance, white and aromatic.

I have already pointed out the probability of
M. Dumolin's suggestion, that the Salvia sclarea,
or Clary, of the moderns is the Baccharis of the
ancients \

Thymus.

Eleven frutescent species are noticed by Sib-
thorp, but those alluded to in ancient writers were
chiefly the common herbaceous kinds, which are
so abundant in the southern parts of Europe.

Thymus vulgaris seems to have been known by
the name of Qv/jlov in Greek, and Thymus in Latin ;
Thymus serpyllum denoted by that of ep7rv\\os

' Walpole's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 246. j c. 38.

k Lib. xxii. c. 71. ' Roman Husb., p, 280.

I 2

116 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

by Theophrastus m, and Serpyllum (a serpendo) by
Pliny n.

Thymus zygis, Sibtb., one of his frutescent species,
is so called from being supposed to be the Zvyi?
of Dioscorides °, which he distinguishes from Ep-
ttvXXov by its greater size, and which, as it grows
in mountainous regions, he calls Wild Thyme.
Aeynos graveolens, the Thymus graveolens of L., is
supposed by Fraas to be the Tpayoplyavov of
Dioscorides p.

Molucella.

One frutescent species is noticed by Sibthorp,
but it seems impossible to identify it with any
ancient plant. It is, indeed, of rather local oc-
currence, namely, in Cyprus. Though not noticed
by Manetti, it is met with in some parts of Italy.

Prasium.

The same remark applies to that genus, of which
P. majus, noticed by Sibthorp in the Peloponnesus,
the coasts of Caria, and Zante, is frutescent.

Stachys.

Three shrubby species are mentioned as oc-
curring in Greece, but it seems difficult to refer
them to any plants noticed by the ancients, al-
though Sibthorp has identified the commonest,
viz. S. palcestina, with the ILtolxvs of Dioscorides.
The latter, indeed, is the name of a shrub men-

■ vi. 2. " xx. 90. ■ iii. 40. «■ iii. 35.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 117

tioned by Dioscorides q, resembling the YlpaaLov,
but larger, bearing numerous hairy leaves, hard,
fragrant, white, and many shoots issuing from the
root, whiter than those of the YlpacrLov. It in-
habits high mountains. Now the Ylpdaiov is re-
garded as a species of Marrubium, either vulgar e
or creticum. Pliny also mentions a herb called
StacJiys, which he compares to a leek, but this is
probably an error, as in other respects his descrip-
tion, so far as it goes, agrees with that of Dios-
corides. Stachys germanica, a very common plant
in Italy, may possibly have as much claim to be
regarded as the plant intended as S.palcestina.

VlTEX.

Vitex Agnus castus is one of the commonest
shrubs in Greece, and was known of old by the
Greek name ayvos, and in earlier writers by that
of Avyos.

The name of Agnus castus, Pliny1' says, was given
to it from the habit of the matrons of Athens to
strew their beds with it during the festival of the
Thesmophora, when the strictest chastity was en-
joined. He mentions two kinds, the larger, called
the white, bearing a white blossom mixed with
purple, the smaller with a paler, downy leaf, and
a flower entirely purple.

Two varieties are also noticed by modern botan-
ists, one having white flowers, the other purple

i iii. 120. r Lib. xxiv. c. 38.

118 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

ones. Though in general a shrub, it sometimes
rises to the height of ten feet, and Hasselquist
observes that pilgrims make staves of it.

Salsola and Salicornia.

One shrubby species of each of these genera is
noticed by Sibthorp as occurring on the sea-coast,
near Athens, but neither of them has been iden-
tified with any plant named by classical writers.

Atriplex.

Four shrubby species are noticed by Sibthorp
in Greece, and two by Manetti in Italy.

One of them, A. halimus, which has established
itself on many parts of our own sea-coasts, obtained
its specific name from the olXliaos of Dioscorides s,
which from his description seems to have been
meant for this shrub.

Some have regarded it as the Batis marina, Pliny1,
but the description the Roman naturalist gives of
Alimon u, seems to identify it with that plant, which
he calls a shrub, dense, white, without thorns, wTith
leaves like the Olive, but softer. I am not aware,
however, that the Atriplex halimus is ever eaten,
and therefore Fee's conjecture may be well founded,
that it is the Atriplex portulacoides, the young
leaves and shoots of which, preserved in vinegar,
have, he says, an agreeable taste.

■ M. M. i. 120. ' xxi. 50. u xxii. 33.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 119

The 'Arpacpaiji? of the Greek writers appears to
have been the Garden Orach, A. hortensis, an herba-
ceous species.

Polygonum.

Two species of shrubby Polygonum are noticed
by Sibthorp, but neither can be identified with any
ancient plants.

Laurus and Daphne.

The term Laurus was employed by the ancients
with the same degree of laxity as that in which
they indulged in the case of the Acanthus, the Acer,
and the like, just as that, with regard to the same
term, which is admitted into the popular phraseology
of the present day.

We speak of the common Laurel, the Bay, the
Portugal, the Alexandrian, the Laurustinus, &c,
shrubs no farther related than in the one character
of being evergreen shrubs, applicable to the same
uses in ornamental gardening.

In like manner Pliny enumerates the tinus, a
plant which must have been the Viburnum tinus,
the Laurustinus of the moderns, belonging to the
family Caprifoliacece, (although some, even in his
time, considered this as a tree of a separate class).

Then follows the Royal Laurel, sacred to Apollo,
and known as the Augustan, being used in triumphs
to encircle the brow of the conqueror, which is
the Bay, or Laurus nobilis of Linnaeus, belonging to
the family of Laurinece, and possessing something

1^20 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

of the aroma so remarkable in certain tropical
species of the same family, namely, in the Cinna-
mon and Cassia, plants noticed by Theophrastus
and Pliny v, but not as occurring in Europe.

The Bay Laurel itself has been regarded by some
as a questionable native of Europe, and even Pliny
seems to speak of it as though it were of foreign
extraction, when he alludes to the care with which
it was preserved, as was the case in the villa of the
Caesars x.

But this was an exceptional case, arising from
the veneration felt for that particular branch of
Laurel, which, as the story goes, was held in the
beak of the hen, that an eagle had let fall from
a loft unhurt into the lap of the Empress Livia ;
and at any rate the discovery of this plant amongst
the Tuffs of Castelnau, in Provence, as stated by
M. Planchon in a late work on the subject, proves
that it existed antecedently to man in the south
of France.

The crackling which takes place when the leaves
are put into the fire, arising from its oil becoming
volatilized, and bursting the walls of the cells
within which it had been imprisoned, was regarded
by the Romans with superstitious fear, and deterred
them from applying the shrub to profane purposes,
or even from using it for fires at the altars. See
Pliny, lib. xv. 40.

The Bay was called the barren Laurel, as the
male and female flowers are on separate trees.
T Lib. xv. c. 39. ' Pliny, lib. xv. c. )<».

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 121

Sibthorp identifies it with the Ad(f)i>ri of Dios-
corides, but the plant now known as Daphne is
the D. lanreola) or Spurge Laurel, which is pro-
bably the species called by Pliny Daphnoides.

Of Daphne Sibthorp mentions thirteen frutescent
species, but the D. laureola does not occur amongst
them. Fraas, however, has identified his first
species, viz. D. Tartonraira, with the Kveoopo? 6
XevKo? of Theophrastus1, both because it flowers
at the autumnal equinox, and also because it has
a leaf which is white and thick-skinned or hard
(Sep/jLdTcoSes), in contradistinction to the black
kind, the leaf of which is fleshy. The former is
fragrant, the latter destitute of smell.

Daphne Gnidium, the same author contends, is
not the Y^vewpov pceXav of Theophrastus, for this
has neither fleshy leaves, nor fragrant leaves. He
considers it the Casia herba of Virg. z, now called
Kavcra in Eubcea, and the Sv/uLeXaca of Dioscorides a,
which Sibthorp also regards it. Daphne oleoides,
or Jasminea, Sibth., is the Xa/xa/Aea of Dioscorides b
and of Pliny. The Kvecopov fxeXav he considers
to have been the Passerina hirsuta of Sibthorp.

Another variety of Lauras is called by Pliny c
taza, and is described by him as having a small
excrescence sprouting from the middle of the leaf,
and forming a fringe, as it were, hanging from it.

Now this description applies so well to the Ruscus
hypoglossum of modern botanists, that we should

y vi. 2. z Georg. ii. 213; Eclog. ii. 49. a iv. 170.

b iv. 169. e xv. 34.

122 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

be inclined to identify the two plants ; but it is re-
markable, that Pliny afterwards states that another
so-called Laurel, namely, the Alexandrian, by some
termed the Idoean, is also designated by the name
oihypoglottion, whilst Dioscorides describes the plant
he calls 'ldala P/£a, as having leaves like the wild
Myrtle, and upon them small twisted appendages
(eA^eey), from which the flower issues.

Pliny, too, in his 27th book, c. 67, speaks of the
Hypoglottion exactly in the same terms as Dios-
corides, but he just afterwards alludes to the Idaean
plant, as though it were distinct from the former.

In another place Dioscorides mentions the Alex-
andrian Laurel as synonymous to the Chamce daphne,
and describes it as having its fruit placed in the
middle of the leaf, a description which would apply
to the R. hypophyllum of Linnaeus, which has a
flower springing from the centre of the leaf like
the B. hypoglottion, but is destitute of that tongue-
shaped bractea which is characteristic of the latter.

From the circumstance of the fruit growing from
the leaf, the Alexandrian Laurel is called by Pliny
carpophyllum.

Nevertheless others have preferred to identify
the Alexandrian Laurel with the Rnscus racemosns,
although in that species the flowers do not spring
from the leaf as in the two other species.

Perhaps, if we believe that the ancients really
distinguished these three species of lluscus, we
may be disposed to believe with Sibthorp, that
the Aa<l)i>r] 'AAeijdvdpeia of Dioscorides was the

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 123

R. hypoglottion, XafiaLdacfrvT] the R. liypophyllum,
Nlvpalvrj dypta the R. aculeatus.

An old botanist of the sixteenth century, Fabius
Colonna, in his work entitled <$>vTof3acrai>o¥, Neapoli,
1592, first pointed out the resemblance between
the Radix Iclcea and the Rascus Iiypoglossum, of
which latter he gives a correct drawing.

Other varieties are also mentioned, which it is
not easy to identify, but amongst them does not
occur that which is the commonest of any at the
present day, using the term Laurel in its popular
sense, namely, the Cerasus laurocerasus, or Laurel
Cherry, this appearing to have been unknown to
the ancients, having been introduced into Europe
from Trebizond in 1576, by Clusius, under diffi-
culties nearly as great as those stated in page 34,
with respect to the Cedar of Lebanon d.

Osyris.

This Osyris alba is common in the south of
Europe, and is noticed by Sibthorp as occurring in
Greece. It is probably described by Dioscoridese
under the name of oavpL?, and by Pliny f under
that of Osyris. It has been considered the casia of
the Poets, but this, as we have seen, was more
probably Daphne gnidium.

El,eagnus.
Elceagnus angustifolia is mentioned by Sibthorp
amongst the shrubs indigenous in Greece, and

d See Loudon's Arboretum, vol. ii. p. 717.
« M.M. iv. 141. f Lib. xxvii. c. 88.

124 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

as occurring in Samos, and in Asia Minor, between
Brusa and Smyrna.

Sibthorp regards it as the eXaia aiQioiriKr] of
Dioscorides, but Fraas questions this identification.

The kXaiayvos of Theophrastus was a marsh
plant, and either the Myrica gale, or the Salix
babylonica.

Aristolochia.

Two shrubby species are noticed by Sibthorp in
Greece, viz. A. semper vir ens and boetica, one also,
A. sipho, by Manetti, in Italy. A. boetica is identified
by Sibthorp with the ' ApLarroXoyjia KXruxarlTis of
Dioscorides, a term which the older botanists had
transferred to the herbaceous species met with in
Great Britain.

Pliny g mentions several kinds of Aristolochia
which had the same virtues attributed to them
as the vulgar at present assign to the various
kinds of Birthwort, included under the same de-
nomination.

It does not seem possible, however, to identify
the kinds mentioned by Pliny with those known
in modern times ; and the notices contained in
Theophrastus and in Dioscorides of * hpicrroXoyia
are still less precise.

Euphorbia.
Six shrubby species are mentioned by Sibthorp,
and one by Manetti in Italy.

Pliny h gives a description of a plant he calls
Euphorbia, which corresponds very well with the
« Lib. \xv. c. o4. h Lib. \w. c. 38.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 125

general characters of the genus known by that
name ; and in lib. xxvi. c. 39, he describes various
kinds of Titht/malus, which from the name of milk-
plant, as well as from other properties ascribed to
it, seems to be rightly identified with our Euphorbias.
The same word, viz. Tt@vp,a\o?, or T^/xaAAoy,
occurs in Theophrastus and Dioscorides, and various
sorts are mentioned by those writers which may
with greater or less probability be referred to par-
ticular species of this genus. But of the frutescent
species the only two that can be identified are —
1st. E. characias, which seems to be the TlOv/jlocXo?
apprjv, Th., yapaKias, Dios. ; and the E. dendroides,
a plant introduced from the East, which is the
TlOv/jlclXo? SevdpcoST]? of Dioscorides.

Sibthorp states, that the word riOvpiaXco is given
to the Euphorbia by the Greeks at present ; Fraas,
however, says that he never heard that name ap-
plied to the plant during his visit in the country.

Buxus.

Pliny notices three varieties of Buxus. The
Gallic, which is trained to shoot upwards in a
pyramidal form, and attains a considerable height,
is no doubt the Buxus sempervirens, or the common
Box of this country ; but the second, which, he
says, is worthless as wood, and emits a disagreeable
odour, cannot so well be identified ; and the third,
known as the Italian Box, is more spreading than
the others, and forms a thick hedge. It is pro-
bably the dwarf variety of our common Box.

126 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

But Pliny would seem to have confounded under
this name both the Buxus sempervirens and halearica
of modern botanists ; for whilst his general descrip-
tion agrees with the former, his statement that
the trunks of largest size grow in Corsica would
lead us to suppose that he had in view the latter.

Hawkins found the Buxus sempervirens on M.
Pindus and in Albania, and Grisebach in Ma-
cedonia and Rumelia, It is known by the name
of HvijdpL at present, so that it is identified with
the TIv^o? of Theophrastus.

Ephedra.

One climbing shrub of this genus is noticed by
Sibthorp in Greece, and by Manetti in Italy. It
is common on the borders of the Mediterranean.
Dioscorides describes a shrub called Tpayo?\ called
also crKop7rio9 and Tpayavov, chiefly occurring in
maritime places, a palm or more in height, being
a low shrub, oblong, without leaves, but with small
red berries of the size of grains of wheat proceed-
ing from its branches, pointed at top, and of an
astringent taste. This is supposed by Fraas and
others to be the Ephedra distachya of modern
botanists.

The plant named Ephedra by Pliny k has been
conjectured to be the same, though some regard it
as another species, viz. E. fragilis, if this be distinct
from E. di.sl.achy a > which Grisebach doubts, and
as corresponding to the ' linrovpis of Dioscorides1.
1 Lib. iv. c. 51. k Lib. xxvi. c. 20. ' iv. K',.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 127

Asparagus.
Four shrubby species are noticed by Sibthorp,
of which the acutifolius, and perhaps aphyllus, are
designated by Theophrastus m under the name of
acnrapayos. It is known in Greece at present
under the name of dcnrapdyyia. The cultivated
kind of Asparagus does not appear to have been
known in Greece, but it was much prized in Italy n.
The wild Asparagus was there distinguished by the
name of Corruda, that of Asparagus being confined
to the kind under cultivation.

Aloe.
Aloe vulgaris, or perfoliata, was found by Sib-
thorp wild in Cyprus and Andros. It is known
at present, as in ancient times, by the name of
dXor], but is generally met with cultivated, as the
Agave is in Sicily. Pliny0 confounds it with other
species of Aloe from the East, and especially with
that employed medicinally. It seems to have been
familiarly known in Rome from the allusion to it
in Juvenal p : —

"Plus aloes quam mellis habere."
referring to its bitter flavour.

Ruscus.
Of this genus Sibthorp notices two shrubby
species, and Manetti one.

Of these, B. hypoglossum has been already iden-

m vi. 3. n Pliny, xix. 42.

° Lib. xxvii. 5. ■' vi. 180.

128 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

titled in page 122, with the Laurus taxa, or Alex-
andrina of Pliny, which is the same as Adtpvr)
aXe^avbpeia of Theophrastus.

Smilax.

Three climbers of this genus are noticed by Sib-
thorp, and one by Manetti. Smilax aspera is known
at the present day by the name of oyxtAaf , so that
we need not hesitate to refer to it the plant de-
scribed under the same name by Theophrastus q,
and by Pliny r.

The trees noticed in the preceding pages pro-
bably comprise all, or nearly all, which wTere re-
cognised, or at least distinguished, by the ancients ;
but the same cannot be said of the shrubs, many of
those then existing having been overlooked by the
writers whose works have come down to us.

The utilitarian character, indeed, which belongs
to all works on Natural History drawn up by
the Greeks and Romans, excluded from the con-
sideration of their authors those natural produc-
tions which were not supposed in some way or
other to minister to man's uses or enjoyment, so
that the meagre catalogue of herbaceous plants
given in my "Lectures on Roman Husbandry'
may be easily accounted for by this circumstance ;
and a similar deficiency in the shrubs enumerated
mav be referred to the same cause.

* iii. 18. r xvi. 03.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 129

Indeed, the catalogue of either would probably
have been even more scanty than is actually the
case, had it not been for the medical properties
ascribed by the ancients to so many more plants
than modern experience justifies, owing to which
various members of the vegetable kingdom have
been distinguished by a place in Pliny's work,
which is certainly not warranted by any real vir-
tues belonging to them.

These, however, are often merely alluded to by
their vernacular names, and therefore are not re-
cognisable at present, whilst in other cases the
descriptions given are so vague and concise, that
the real nature of the plant intended is left in
a great degree a matter of conjecture.

So difficult, indeed, is it to identify a modern
plant from the description given by an ancient
writer, that Sib thorp was glad to avail himself of
two subsidiary means of determining what it might
be, of which he has made a frequent use.

The first of these consisted in ascertaining the
vernacular name by which the plant is known in
Greece at the present day, it being presumed that
the peasants retain in most instances for familiar
objects the appellations handed down to them by
the first settlers in the country. Thus Sibthorp,
in describing his ascent of Parnassus, observes : —
" I walked out with a shepherd's boy to herbarize.
My pastoral botanist surprised me not a little with
his nomenclature ; I traced the names of Dioscorides
and Theophrastus, corrupted, indeed, in some de-

K

130 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

gree by pronunciation, and by the long series an-
norum which had elapsed since the time of those
philosophers ; but many of them were unmutilated,
and their virtues faithfully handed down in the oral
tradition of the country."

And as an example of the use to which this
species of evidence may be applied, I have re-
marked in my " Roman Husbandry," that we have
an additional reason for believing the Misletoe of
the Oak, mentioned by Dioscorides, to have been
the Loranthus europceus, and not the Viscum album,
with which it has been usually identified, from
finding that this plant is now called ofjv?, a mani-
fest corruption of l£vsy whereas the parasite which
grows on the Silver Fir is the true Misletoe, and
is termed /ze'AAa.

The other method of identifying the plants of
Dioscorides, was by means of the drawings ap-
pended to the Vienna MS., which I have already
noticed in p. 231 of my "Roman Husbandry."

From these it may be inferred, that the word
aKOLvSos was used as a generic term for several
plants of very distinct character, agreeing only in
the circumstance of their being spinous3; that the
%ov XevKov or XevKoiov was not a violet, but some
species of cruciferous plant, and therefore perhaps,
as Sibthorp considered it, the Cheiranthus Cheiri, or
as it is now sometimes called, the Dame's Violet1;
that the TolklvOos was not a Larkspur, but an

■ "Roman Husbandry," p. 211. ■ p. 240.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 131

hexandrous plant resembling the Lily, and perhaps,
as Tenore conjectured, the Gladiolus byzantinus.

The plates also assist us in recognising Dios-
corides' ct'ikvs ayplo?, which was the Momordica
elaterium, or Squirting Cucumber, of the south of
Europe ; the Currant Grape, as already noticed ;
the plant called by Dioscorides 'Afi/uLcoviaKov, which
was perhaps the Ferula orientalis, and certainly
an umbelliferous plant ; the (f)vaa\h1 which from
the drawing would seem to have been the Physalis
alJceJcengi, although Sibthorp has chosen to identify
the latter with the arpvyvos dXiKaKafios of Dios-
corides, but the plate of which bears more re-
semblance to the Physalis somnifera described
by him.

I might also appeal to the engravings of the
KOLTnrapL?, or Caper plant ; of the different species
of pLTjKcov, Poppy ; of the olSlolvtov, or Maiden's Hair
Fern ; of the Ivy, kktctos ; of the larger House-
leek, aeificoov to /uieya ; of the deificooi/ to \xiKpov^
the Sedum ochroleucum of modern botanists ; of the
Aloe vulgaris, dXorj ; of the apKevOo?, or Juniper,
as sufficiently resembling nature to enable us to
determine at a glance the plant referred to.

In many instances, however, it must be confessed
that the artist has shewn his ignorance of the object
intended, by having drawn entirely from his own
imagination the figure with which he has pre-
sented us.

Hence, in spite of these aids, we are often left
in doubt as to the plant which the naturalists of

k2

132 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

antiquity, in their short, confused, and even incon-
sistent descriptions, intended to bring before us.

Modern botanists, too, have increased the con-
fusion, by appropriating to the plants they de-
scribe, without due consideration, the names found
in ancient works, and these have been adopted
without enquiry by many lexicographers.

Thus JEscidus, the name for a species of Oak,
is given to the Horse Chesnut, a tree which the
ancients certainly were not acquainted with ; the
Cytisus, which seems to correspond with the 31edi-
cago arbor ea of modern botanists, has been trans-
ferred to the Laburnum ; the Sycamore, a name
given by the Greeks to a kind of Fig, is applied
to a species of Maple, the Acer pseudo-plat anus.

It will therefore not be a matter of surprise, that
any catalogue of trees and shrubs given by modern
writers, such as the one Loudon u obtained from an
Italian botanist, Signor Manetti, should be so much
more copious than that which can be collected
from any treatise of antiquity ; even after exclud-
ing from the list the exotic plants introduced from
various parts of the old or new world, of which
the ancients knew nothing.

It may be remarked in general, that the number
of frutescent species is for the most part greater in
Greece than in Italy — a circumstance connected,
no doubt, with the more southern latitude of the
former country, and explicable on the Darwinian
hypothesis, by the greater mildness of the climate,

■ Arboretum, vol. iv.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 133

which allowed species, whose habit it was not to
die down, to survive the winter, and thus to be-
come perpetuated.

It will be perceived, that I have not deemed it
necessary for my purpose to set down in every in-
stance the several species belonging to each genus,
as it would be hopeless to discover an ancient name
appropriate to every one, so that where, in the list
at the end of the volume, a Greek or Latin name
is merely placed opposite to that of the genus, it is
implied that the whole genus may put in a claim
to the synonyme.

But although from my enumeration of the trees
and shrubs now cultivated in Italy such as are
exotic have been excluded, I do not adopt the same
rule with regard to those named by the writers
of antiquity, believing that there is often reason to
doubt the authenticity of the statements given by
Pliny and others as to the fact of their introduction
from other regions.

Without, indeed, questioning that the fruit-trees
known to the ancients had an Eastern origin, and
even that some ornamental plants cultivated in
their gardens and pleasure-grounds may have been
derived from other countries, I am inclined to be-
lieve, with the younger Decandolle, that wherever
a particular kind of tree has established .itself over
a wide extent of country so as to constitute a forest,
it ought, unless the contrary be proved, to be re-
garded as natural to the soil.

Now this seems to hold good with the Chesnut

134 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

at least, if not with the Walnut ; the former cover-
ing in Tuscany and the south of France large tracts
of country, and seeming as much entitled to the term
of aborigines as the Oak or the Fir.

Nor can it be said that these trees require the
fostering care of man to maintain themselves in the
countries where they existed in ancient days, as the
Chesnut seems to do in England, and the Date
Palm in Italy and Greece, for both ripen their fruit
to perfection, issuing spontaneously from the ground
from seeds self-planted, and are able to withstand
the most rigorous cold ever experienced in those
countries without being dwarfed or blighted in
consequence.

This position does not of course exclude any
speculations that may be indulged in, as to the
mode in which plants became disseminated by
natural causes from the centres in which each may
be supposed to have been originally created, under
a different configuration of sea and land than that
which now exists.

But this was at least a process requiring a vast
duration of time, probably indeed being long ante-
cedent to the peopling of the country by its human
inhabitants.

It seems certain, that forests of Oak, of Chesnut,
and of Beech must have established themselves
throughout Europe before man took possession of
the country, for unless we conceive that the first
settlers brought with them seed-corn and other do-
mestic vegetables, and had already passed through

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 135

the previous stages of hunter and pastoral life, we
must adopt the early traditions which represent
them as living upon acorns, beech -nuts, and
chesnuts.

Thus Lucretius : —

" Glaudiferas inter curabaut corpora quercus
Plerumque; et, quae nunc liiberno tempore cernis,
Arbuta puniceo fieri matura colore,
Plurima turn tellus, etiam majora ferebat ;
Multaque praeterea novitas tutu florida mundi
Pabula dia tulit, miseris mortalibus ampla v."

" But acorn-meals chief culled they from the sheds
Of forest oaks ; and in their wintry months,
The wide wood-whortle with its purple fruit
Fed them, then larger and more amply poured,
And many a boon besides, now long extinct,
The fresh-formed earth her hapless oft spring dealt."

As Decandolle observes, the mere conveyance of
the seeds of amentaceous and coniferous plants
across an arm of the sea by natural causes is almost
inconceivable, and the spontaneous establishment
of a forest of such trees absolutely impossible, un-
less man took the trouble of bringing it about ;
whilst the extension of such forests in the early
ages of Greece and Rome would seem to throw
back their antiquity to a date, when the human
race was too rude and unsettled to have attempted
such an undertaking.

Chesnuts then, as well as the other Cupuliferce
which are found in forests throughout Europe, may
fairly be regarded, in spite of the authority of

' Lib. v. 937—942.

136 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

Pliny, as indigenous to the countries in which they
are found.

If the gaps which occur in the continuity of
these forests create a difficulty, if it be objected
that large intermediate spaces exist where such
trees are entirely wanting, it is much more easy to
conceive that they had died off in the latter locali-
ties, than that they had been planted in the coun-
tries where they are found through the instru-
mentality of man.

Thus certain species of Oak seem to be under-
going diminution at the present time. Q. cerris,
spread over the whole of Asia Minor, is now
found in Europe only in a few isolated spots, as
in the Apennines, in Sicily, near Besancon, and
in the west of France along the Loire.

The Pinus excelsa, so abundant in the Himalayas,
has been detected, as we have seen x, by Grisebach
on the mountains of Rumelia, but is not known
to occur in any intermediate position. These may
be regarded as oases in the midst of vast spaces
over which the species is unknown. The com-
mon Oak even seems to shew symptoms of wear-
ing out, not establishing itself spontaneously in
countries where it has been exterminated, and, where
it exists, suffering from the destruction of its forests
through the agency of man and beasts. On the
other hand the Beech appears to be extending itself
throughout Europe, owing partly to drainage, partly
to a fit soil being prepared for it by the detritus

x See p. 32.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 137

of leaves of other trees, and partly from its stifling
other plants by its own foliage, and thus obtain-
ing exclusive possession of the soil.

Of the extinction of trees within periods which,
although very remote, must in a geological sense be
regarded as modern, we have a striking instance in
the fact stated by Danish naturalists, and recorded
in Ly ell's " Antiquity of Man," p. 9, that although
the Scotch fir is not a native of the Danish Islands,
and when introduced there does not appear to
thrive, yet that its trunks are met with in the bogs
at various depths, associated with flint implements.

In the same bogs, but at a higher level, are found
prostrate trunks of the sessile variety of the com-
mon Oak, and still higher up some of the peduncu-
lated variety of the same tree, together with the
Alder, Birch, and Hazel. Now the Oak in later
times has been almost superseded throughout Den-
mark by the Beech.

Other trees, such as the White Birch, characterise
the lower part of the bogs, but disappear from the
higher; while others, again, such as the Aspen,
Pojmlus fremula, occur at all levels.

This, and other corresponding facts that might
be cited from the animal kingdom, shew, that even
under the present conditions of the earth's surface
particular plants disappear, and others take their
place.

I have alluded to this fact in a paper read before
the Natural History Section of the British Associa-

138 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

tion, at the meeting held in Bath y, and it may not
be out of place to recapitulate here the arguments
which have led me to suspect, that even when the
external conditions remain unchanged, each species,
like every individual belonging to it, has its days
numbered, and that the period assigned to its dura-
tion may be extended indeed by favourable, and
abridged by unfavourable external conditions, but
in no case can transcend certain definite limits.

I there remarked, that we seem in this instance
to trace the workings of two antagonistic prin-
ciples ; the first, that which aims at handing
down to the offspring the leading characteristics
of its parents ; the second, one which causes the
vigour of the race gradually to decline, and its
peculiar excellences to be effaced, owing to the
balance, upon which the harmonious workings of
the system depend, being destroyed, through the
undue preponderance of one element, and the dimi-
nution or loss of another.

In both instances, however, nature seems to have
provided means for postponing this inevitable ter-
mination for a longer or shorter interval of time ;
namely, by those variations from the primitive type,
which are to a certain extent brought about by the
mere process of sexual reproduction, and which are
still further secured by those contrivances for pre-
venting self-fertilization, to which Mr. Darwin and
others have of late called particular attention.

* Tlii , : published in extenso in the "Gardener's Chronicle"

for October, L864.

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 139

In animals the frequent union of individuals
too nearly identical is checked by the power of
locomotion which they possess, and a still further
tendency to variation is brought about by the
changes in climate, food, &c. which they have to
encounter.

But in plants, special contrivances against self-
fertilization appear to have been required for pre-
venting the too rapid deterioration of the race, so
that, even in cases where the male and female
organs grow together, it has been provided, that
the pollen of one flower should be conveyed in
various ways to the stigmas of another ; and it
seems a significant fact, that in so much the greater
majority of instances, trees, and other plants of long
duration and of vigorous growth, should possess
either moncecous or dioecous flowers, as if it were
intended by this arrangement to renovate more
effectually the vitality of the plant, and thus to
secure to. the species a longer period of existence.

Yet with all these provisions for prolonging the
life of a species, its days, like those of the indi-
viduals composing it, are numbered, and the only
question that remains for us to consider is, whether
its dying out is to be regarded simply as the result
of the altered condition of climate, soil, &c. to
which it has been subjected, or occurs from some
inherent tendency to decay in its own organization.

The former explanation is the most obvious one,
and may prove satisfactory to certain minds ; for

140 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

the gradual sinking of temperature which has taken
place in the crust of the globe, down to the glacial
period, and its subsequent elevation during that in
which we live, suggest causes for the disappearance
of certain species, and for the substitution of others,
which may be deemed sufficient to afford an ade-
quate solution of the problem.

Nevertheless, if these effects are exclusively due
to climate, certain other conditions, at least, be-
sides that of temperature, must be concerned in
producing them.

Take, for instance, the case of the Welling tonia.

This tree, or one nearly allied to it, existed gene-
rally throughout Europe during the Miocene period.

The Lignites of Bovey Tracey, in Devonshire, are
supposed to be principally made up of its remains,
and an allied species is widely distributed over
Europe and America, from Italy to Greenland,
during the Miocene period, when the climate is
supposed to have been almost sub-tropical.

At present, its only native habitat is California,
yet it does not seem to have been limited to this
one region by the gradually decreasing temperature,
since in that case it would not have survived the
glacial period, nor would it prove capable of re-
sisting the present winters of Great Britain.

Mr. Bateman, who has introduced this tree largely
into his plantations in Cheshire, considers it hardier
than the Deodara ; yet from some mysterious cause
unconnected with temperature, all his specimens
were blighted in the spring of 1864, whilst the

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 141

Deodar as did not suffer. Does not this fact sug-
gest some unexplained condition of climate which,
operating upon the species over a long lapse of
years, has at length reduced it to the narrow limits
in which it is found native — unless indeed we fall
back upon that higher law, which prescribes to
each species a limited period of duration, and sup-
poses this period to be arriving in the case of this
remarkable vegetable production ?

It may be said, indeed, that such an inference is
contradicted by the vigorous growth and gigantic
proportions which this tree assumes in the spots
where it still exists. Yet the same remark would
apply to several other trees of great size and vigour,
such as the Dracaena draco, the Callitris quadri-
valvis, and the Glyptostrobus heterophyllus*, now
confined to one country, though formerly of much
more extensive distribution.

In these cases, also, it is difficult to point out
what changes of climate could have led to their
being thus restricted within their present range.

But it is time to bring these Lectures to a ter-
mination, in concluding which I cannot help re-
marking upon the small progress made in natural
knowledge between the period of Alexander and
Trajan, a distance of time amounting to not less

z Callitris, found now in Algeria, has been detected in the Miocene
formation of Aix, in Provence. (Count Saporta in the Ann. des Sc.
Nat.) Glyptostrobus, found now in China aud Japan, had spread during
the tertiary period over Switzerland ; Draccena draco is now confined
to Teneriffe.

142 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [lect.

than from four to five hundred years. In accuracy
of information Theophrastus and Aristotle both
greatly exceed Pliny, whose work, although in-
valuable as a Cyclopaedia, bears evident marks of
being a compilation, and not the result of original
research.

The Romans, indeed, seemed to have acted to-
wards the Greeks, as our mediaeval writers did
towards the ancients, and instead of observing for
themselves, were contented with copying from pre-
ceding authors, w7hose statements had with them
the force and authority of ocular demonstration.

Thus there is often a remarkable similarity be-
tween the descriptions of plants given by Pliny and
Dioscorides, shewing either that one copied from
the other, or that both derived their information
from some common source. Yet neither writer
ever alludes to the other, unless Pliny may be sup-
posed to do so in a passage of his 36th Book,
c. 37, where, after describing a stone called Schistos,
possessing medicinal virtues in diseases of the eye,
much in the same terms as Dioscorides does in his
5th Book, c. 145, he adds, " Haec est sententia
eorum, qui nuperrime scripsere." Pliny, indeed, is
very copious in his citations of antecedent authors,
but perhaps at the time when he drew up his list,
Dioscorides had not risen into that celebrity which
he afterwards obtained, as being the writer who
has handed down to us the fullest account of the
simples employed by the ancients.

Nevertheless it seems to be pretty well ascer-

iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 143

tained, that Dioscorides lived in the age of Pliny,
for he dedicates his books to one Areus Asclepia-
dens, who was the friend of Leecanius Bassus, one
of the Consuls in a.d. 64, during the reign of Nero,
fifteen years before the great eruption of Vesuvius
in which Pliny perished.

At all events, it seems probable that both these
writers derived much of their information from one
common source, and it is to be feared that, in too
many instances, this was obtained not directly from
the observation of Nature, but from earlier autho-
rities, such as Theophrastus and others of inferior
credibility.

Another remarkable proof of their practice of
appealing servilely to authority for the facts they
record, in preference to going themselves to the
fountain-head, is afforded by the drawings of plants
which accompany some of the MSS. of Dioscorides,
the oldest of which extant, is that of Vienna, already
alluded to in my Lectures a, having been executed
in the fifth century, and therefore not very far dis-
tant from the age in which Dioscorides himself
flourished ; yet they bear on the face of them the
appearance of being copies, and often blundering
copies, of drawings of even an earlier date.

And a MS. several centuries more recent than
this, which had been originally procured from the
East by a Florentine nobleman named Renuccini,
in whose family it had remained for more than
a century, and which is now in the possession of

* "Rom. Husb.," p. 231.

144 THE TREES AND SHRUBS, &c. [lect. iv.

Sir Thomas Phillips, of Middle Hill, in Worcester-
shire, was likewise accompanied with coloured draw-
ings, in many cases identical with those in the
earlier MS. alluded to.

The works of Columella, too, are in most re-
spects an amplification in more elegant Latinity of
the earlier writings of Cato and Varro, and very
possibly the two latter would have been found to
be taken from the great Carthaginian work on
Agriculture by Mago, if the latter had come down
to us.

How mortifying it is to think, that whilst these
repetitions of facts, and even of old fables, recorded
by many of the authors referred to, might have
been so well spared, we should have to deplore
such gaps in the history and literature of antiquity,
as have arisen from the loss of many of the Books
of Livy, and from the almost entire destruction of
the Comedies of Menander and Epicharmus.

CATALOGUE

OF

TREES AND SHRUBS INDIGENOUS IN
GREECE AND ITALY,

WITH THEIR ANCIENT GREEK AND LATIN SYNONYMES.

N.B. Rom. Hush, denotes my Lectures on Roman Husbandry, 1857; Th., Theophrastus;
Dios., Dioscorides; PL, Pliny; Virg., Virgil; Ov., Ovid; Sib., Sibthorp; Dec, Decandolle ;
Linn., Linnaeus. Under eacb genus tbose species only are enumerated, wbich can be
identified with some degree of probability with the plants named in Greek or Latin writers.

Modern Greece.

Berberis, 2 sp.
cretica

Capparis, 2 sp.

Dianthus, 2 sp.
Cistus, 21 sp. .

• creticus .

villosus .

salvifolius

Linum, 2 sp. .
Hypericum, 6 sp.

Hibiscus, 1 sp.
Ruta, 3 sp.
Coriaria, 1 sp.
Staphylea, 1 sp.

Euonymus, 1 sp.
Ilex, 1 sp. .
— — aquifolium

Modern Italy.

Clematis, 4 species . 8 species

2 sp.

1 sp.

1 sp.

6 sp.

Helianthe-
mum, 2 sp.

3 sp. .

1 sp. .

1 sp. .

1 sp. .

1 sp. .

3 sp. .
3 sp. .

Ancient Greek
Names.

K\?7 fiarlrts

Kv\ovTea(Th..)?
Kdmrapis .

Aios avdos i

Addauov
Kl<ttos app-qv
Kiaros 8rj\vs

Aivop

Kopis? orfY7re-

piKOV .

' Akdala
Ilrjydvov

Ancient Latin
Names.

Clematis(PL),
Viburnum
(Virg.) .

Spina appen
dix .

Capparis .

Page

Ledj

Linum
Hypericum ?

Ruta

ILixovipov ?
2/xIAa£ .

Staphyloden-
di'on . ,
Euonymus?

. | Aquifolia

64

65

67, and Rom.
Husb., 253

69

67

69

69
70
72
72

72

72

13
73,andRom
Husb., 270

146

Modern Greece.

Vitis, 1 sp.
Rhamnus, 9 sp.
Zizyphus, 2 sp.
vulgaris •

paliurus (Paliu-

rus australis)
Pistacia, 2 sp. .

lentiscus

terebinthus .

Rhus, 2 sp. . .

Acer, 4 sp. .
pseudo-platanus

platanoides )

campestre )

Tilia, 1 sp. . .
Cercis, 1 sp. . .

Spartium, 3 sp.
viilosuni

Cytisus, 5 sp. .

Colutea, 1 sp. .
Anagyris, 1 sp.
Coronilla, 2 sp.
emerus .

Catalogue of Trees and Shrubs

Modern Italy.

3 sp.
9 sp.

6 sp. .
10 sp. .

1 sp. .
1 sp. .
Ulex, 1 sp.
1 sp. .

Genista, 4 sp.
5 sp. . .

Medicago, I sp. .

Anthyllis, 2 sp.

barba Jovis

Ononis, 1 sp. .

Astragalus, 3 sp.

ari status

creticus .

Ikdysarum, 1 sp.
Ebenus, 1 sp. .

Lotus, 1 up.

Ceratonia,
1 sp.

1 sp. .
1 sp. .
1 sp. .

Ancient Greek
Names.

ApneXos dypia

UaXiovpos

(Dios.&Th.)

'Pdpvosrpiaaos
(Dios.)

Ancient Latin
Names.

Yitis

TepefiivBos
'Povs, or Kok-

Kvypia
2(pev8apvos
KXivorpoxos

Zvyla .

<&i\vpa .
"2rjpv8a ?

' A<nrd\a6os

KoXovrea
Avdyvpis

Zyzipha (Ju-
jubaruin ar-
bor.)

Paliurus

(Virg.)

Page

70

74

Lentiscus
Terebinthus
Rhus . . .

Acer . . .
Acer gallicum

(PL), Acer

(Virg.)

(Pavonia(PL)
\ Acer (Ov.)
Tilia . . .

74

77

79
44

Genista
Genista

Siliquae prse-
dulces, or
Ceratonia

Anagyris .

1 sp.

1 sp.

HeXrjKivos
KvTiaaos

Avcovis, or
"Ovcovis

Tpayd.Ka.v6a.
HuTrjpiov

'EfievT}, or Ku-
rt (70S

Securidaca
Cytisus .

Barba Jovis
Ononis

Tragacantha .

44

48

80

82
82,andRom.
Husb., 169

82

83
83

82, and Rom.
Husb., 170
84

85

85

86

85
86

Modern Greece.

Indigenous in Greece and Italy.

M dern Italy.

147

Ancient Greek
Names.

Psoralea, 1 sp.

Prunus, 6 sp. .
spinosa .

' AcrcbaXriov

Ancient Latin
Names,

Minyanthes,
or Asphaltum

pro strata

domestica (sor-

bus domestica, Linn . )
Amygdalus. 3 sp.
communis .

Cerasus, 1 sp.
Poterium, 1 sp

Rosa, 6 sp.
Pyrus, 10 sp

communis

malus

cydonia

Crataegus (mespilus

Sib.), 6 sp
— aria .

oxyacantha

Cornus, 1 sp. .

mascula .

Praxinus, 1 sp.

excelsior

Ornus. 1 sp.

europsea

Tamarix
Eibes, 2 sp.

Myrtus ....
Punica, 1 sp. .

Sempervivum, 1 sp.
Pupleurum, 2 sp.
1 fruticosum .

4 sp.

Persica, 2 sp.
Armeniaca,

1 sp.
Cerasus, 5 sp.

iTTohias (Th.),
KoKKV[xr)\ia

(Dios.)

XcifxaiKepdcros .

'Ovtj (Th.)

'ApvydaXr) .

Spiraea, 1 sp.

18 sp. . .

6 sp. . .

6 sp. .
Torminalis

2 sp.
2 sp.
9 sp.

Hedera, 1 sp.

1 sp.
4 sp.
Philadelphus
2sp.

1 sp.

2 sp.

Kepacria
2TOifir) .

*o^(Th.) .
'Axpds (Dios.)

\\ypioprj\a
Kvbcouia prjXa .

'Apia

KpdveLa
BovpeXia (Th.)
MeXi'a (Th.)

MvpLKT)

MvpalvT]
Poa

Aei£a>ov

Se'creXi aWioni
kov (Sib.)

Kittos, or
Kicraos .

Primus

Chamsecera-

sus

Sorbum

Amygdalus
Malus Persica
Armeniaca

Cerasus
Stobe . . .

Rosa .
Pyrus .
Pyrus

Malus
MalusCydonia

Torminalis
Spina appen-
dix, Spina alba

Cornum .

Praxinus .

Ornus .
My rice

Myrtus
Malum puni

cum
Aizoum .

Edera .

Page

84
2 and 88

2
2

2
89

88
2 and 90

4 and 90

49
50
52

52

90
91

92
93

2

92
91

91

94

148

Modern Greece.

Viburnum, 2 sp. .

Lonicera, 5 sp.
Ernodea, 1 sp.
Scabiosa, 1 sp.
Santolinaa, 1 sp. .
maritima

Conyza, 4 sp.
Candida

Artemisia, 1 sp.
arborescens

Senecio, \ sp. . .
Gnaphalium, 2 sp.
— — stcechas .

Staehelina, 2 sp.
Pteronia, 1 sp.

Centaurea, 1 sp.
Cineraria, 1 sp.
Erica, 6 sp.
arborea .

Arbutus, 2 sp.

• unedo

Andrachne

Rhododendron

Vaccinium, 1 ftp.

Catalogue of Trees and Shrubs

Modern Italy.

Cornus, 1 sp. .
Sambucus, 3 sp.

nigra

ebulus

2 sp.

3 sp.

4 sp.
Tinus
9 sp.

1 sp.

chamsecypa-
rissus .

2 sp.

abrotanum
santonica

1 sp).

1 sp.
6 sp.

Calluna, 1 sp.
Arctostaphy-

lus, 1 sp.

3 sp. . .

Rhododen-
dron, 2 sp.

Ancient Greek
Names.

Kpavia

yAKTT] .
Xa/xaidKTT]

A'lyiXos .

TvatpaXiov

(rSib.) .
JJ6\lov r

'ApKTLOV

(Dios. ?)

'Apre/ziVta .
'Ayj/lvdtou . I
Hpiyepov .

TL\ixpv<rov, or
Xpvcra.p6ep.ov

Xap.aL7T€VKT)

(Dios.)

'EpeUr)

MvpLKT)

Kop,apos
'Avdpiixvr) .

' Ap.7Tf\0S TTJS

'io^s .

Ancient Latin
Names.

Cornum

Sambucus
Ebulus, or
Chain geacte

Tinus (PI.)

Gnaphalium
chamaezilon

Polium

Artemisia
pontica (PI.)?
santonica (PI.)
Senecio • .

Helicrysum

Erice .
Myrica

Arbutus, or

unedo
Andrachne

Page

50
95

119

96
97
97

98

98

98

99
100

101
101

101
102
103

50

■ N.1J. In p. (JS, for " Several species of this evergreen an ler-slirub," read
of this genus, bat all herbaceous. "

104

105, &Rom.
Hush., 239

Five species

Indigenous in Greece and Italy.

149

Modern Greece.

Olea, 1 sp.

Phillyrea, 1 sp. .
Jasminum, 1 sp. .
Xerium, 1 sp. . .
Periploca, 1 sp.
Convolvulus, 3 sp.
Lithospermum, 2 sp.

Onosma, 1 sp.
Solanum, 1 sp.
Lycium, 2 sp. .

europeum

Yerbascum, 1 sp.
Teucrinra, 9 sp.
polium

Modern Italy.
2 sp. .
4 sp. .
1 sp. .
1 sp. .

1 sp.

2 sp.

Satureia, 4: sp. . . 1 sp.

Thymbra, 1 sp. . . 1 sp.

(Satureia thymbra) |

Lavandula, 3 sp. . . I sp.

stoechas . .

Origanum, 2 sp. . . j .

dictamnus . . | .

Thymus. 2 sp.
zygis

Acynos, 1 sp. .
(Thymus acynos)

graveolens .

Stachys, 2 sp. . .
Phlomis, 1 sp.
Molucella, I sp. .
Prasium, 1 sp.
Salvia, 3 sp. . .

officinalis

Rosmarinus, 1 sp.

1 sp.

1 sp.
1 sp.

Salicornia, 1 sp.
Salsola, 1 sp. .
Polygonum, 2 sp.
Vitex, 1 sp.
Atriplex, 4 sp.

halimus .

Daphne, 13 sp.
Tartonraira

1 sp.

2 sp.

4 sp.

Gnidium
jasminia (Sib.)

Ancient Greek
Names.

EXala .
<&iXhvpia
Nrjpiov

2pl\a£ Aela
\tBo(TTrepfxop ?

2rpv)(fos

Ancient Latin
Names.

Olea

Rhododaphne

Convolvulus ?
Lithosper-
mum ? .

Strychnon

'Pdpvos (Sib.)
<&\6p.os .

ZloXiov
Qvpfipa

Opiyavov .
AiKTapvos .
Qvpov .
Zvyts (Dios.)

T pay opiyavov
&\6pos dypia

'E\e\io-<fiaKov
Ai{3ava>Tis •

Yerbascum

Polium

Thymbra

Stcechas .
Origanum
Dictamnus
Thymus .

Stachys?
Phlomis

oleoides (L.)

Salvia
. Libanotis, or
Rosmarinus

fAyvos,OY Avyos

Agnus castus

aXipos (Dios.) | Alimon (PI.)

Kvecopos
Kve<opos 6 Xev-

kos .
QvpeXata

(Dios.)
Xa/xaiAea

Daphnoides

Casia herba
(Virg.)
. Chamaelea

Page

Rom. Husb..
165
106
106
104
109
106

107
107
109
112

112

108

114

114
108
115
116

116
113
116
116
115

113

118
118
119
117

118
119

150

Catalogue of Trees and Shrubs

Modern Greece.

Aristolocliia, 1 sp.
Euphorbia, 3 sp. ,

dendroides

Buxus, 1 sp.
Ficus, 1 sp.
carica

Morus

Juglans, 1 sp.
regia .

Ulmus, 2 sp. .
Celtis, 1 sp.
Alnus, 1 sp. . .
Carpinus, 2 sp.

betulus . .

ostrya (Sib.)

(Ostrya vulgaris,

Dec.)
Corylus, 2 sp.
avellana

Modern Italy.

Ancient Greek
Names.

Passerina, 1 sp.
Laurus, I sp. .
Osyris, 1 sp. .
Elgeagnus, 1 sp.

1 sp. .

1 sp. .

1 sp. .

Hippophae
1 sp.

1 sp. .

1 sp. .

1 sp.

2 sp.

2 sp.

Kvtoipov fxeXav
Ad(pvrj .

Oavpis

EXaiaaWioTTLKi]

?(Sibth.)

*Apio-To\6)(ia
TiOvpdXXos

(Th.)

TcdvpdXos

(Dios.)

TidvpdWos

dev8pa>8r]s
Uv£6s .

Sycamorus

3 sp.
nigra
2 sp.

1 sp.
1 sp.
1 sp.
3 sp.

3 sp.

SvKrj

2vkapli'os (ev
A.lyvTVT(o)

"2,VKOpopQV

(Dios.)

2vKap.Li>os(Th.)

Kdpvov Baai-

Ai*oi>(Dios.)
rireXea

Acotos (Dios.)

KXrjOpos

Ancient Latin
Names.

Laurus
Osyris

Aristolocliia .

Euphorbia,Ti-

thymalus .

Euphorbia

dendroides
Buxus

Ficus . . .
Ficus Egyptia

'OdTpVS

Kapva VPa~

KdpvOV TTOVTL-

kuv (Dios*)

Morus

Nux Juglans
Ulmus

Alnus

Carpinus
Ostrya

Nux abellina,
or pontica

Page

121
119
123
123

124

124

125

2

6
53
54
55
60

In my first Lecture, p. 2, I have given for the Sycamore Fig the Latin synonyme of
Bycamonu; and for the Mulberry that of Morus, omitting the corresponding Greek
svuoii vines, viz.. IvKan'tvos Al-yvmia for the former, and %vK*fdvo$ alone for the latter. That
Theophraetni employed the terms in this sense was pointed out by Bodseua in his notes on
Theophrastnj, and is confirmed by Frtai (Synopsis Plant. PL CI.) from various considerations.
DioecoridoJ uses the term /xopia and (rvicafxr)u4a for the Black Mulberry, and that of
XuKafiivos (*> AlyvwTw;, or simply rb luxSnopo; for the Sycamore Fig.

Modern Greece.

Salix . .
Populus, 3 sp.
alba .

Indigenous in Greece and Italy.

Modern Italy.

151

Ancient Greek
Names.

10 sp.
3 sp.

nigra
tremula

Fagus, 1 sp. . .

sylvatica

Castanea, 1 sp. . .

vesca

Quercus, 9 sp. .

- robur . . .

- esculus .
ilex ....

suber . .

cerris or Tour-

nefortii . . . .

toza (dwarf va-
riety of cerris) . .

pseudo-suber .

aegilops .

coccifera

1 sp.
1 sp.
10 sp.

Platanus, 1 sp. . .
Taxus, 1 sp.
Ephedra, I sp. . .
Pinus, 4 sp. . . .
halepensis, or

mantima

laricio, or syl-

vestris

— pinea

— excelsa'

Abies pectinata .
(Pinus picea, Sib.)

Jnniperus, 6 sp.
— — communis
oxycedrus

Betula, 1 sp.
1 sp. .

'irea

'A^epany, Or

AevKT)
Aiyetpos

'OtvT, . .

Kaaravov .

Apis
Qrjyos .
Upivos

T£ka.TV(pvWos

CH pep is
'AXicpXoios .
AlyiXcoyjr
Hpivos .

Ancient Latin
Names.

Salix .

Populus alba
nigra

Fagus
Castanus

nXdravos .

MlXvs .

T 'pay os (Dios.)

Pinaster .

Alugho

Cembra

excelsa .
Larix

CedrusLibani

Thuya arti-

culata .

4 sp.

IleVKT] .

JJevKt] 7rapa\ias

TlevKT) 'iSaia
Illrvs .

EXclttj .

KeBpos

\\pK€i>Bos piKpa
Kedpos piKpa

Robur

Esculus

Ilex

Suber

Latifolia

Hemeris
Haliphlceos
iEgilops
Ilex (PL)
Betulla
Platanus .
Taxus
Ephedra .

Pinaster

Tibulus

Tajda

Picea
Pinus
Strobus ?

Abies

Larix
Cedrus

Citrus

gallica .

Page

55

55

7
10

59
61
42

126
18

26
22
33

41

38

Lately added to the list by Grisebach, see p. 32.

152

Catalogue of Trees and Shrubs.

Modern Greece.

Juniperus phcenicia

sabina

excelsa .

Cupressus, 1 sp. .
sempervirens

Asparagus, 3 sp.
acutifolius

Aloe, 1 sp. . .
Ruscus, 3 sp. .
hypoglossum

hypophyllum

aculeatus

Smilax, 1 sp.

Modem Italy.

2 sp.

3 sp.

2 sp.

Ancient Greek
Names.

BpdOus erepov
BpdBvs
Kedpos ?

KvTrdpiTTOs

(Th.) .

'A(T7rapayos
'aXo'j? .

'YnoyXcoaaov
(Dios.) . .

Adcpvrj ake^av-
dpeia (Dios.)
XcipaiSdcpvr)

MvpaivT) dypta
2/xiAa£

Ancient Latin
Names.

Cedrus ?
Cypressus

Corruda
Aloe .

Laurus Taxa,
Radix Idsea

(ho

Laurus Alex-
andria (PL)

Smilax

Page

42
127

127

122

Printcb bj) gtrssra. piulur, (Tornmarhrt, ©xforb.

CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS.

Page 9. Quercus pubescens. According to Dr. Alex-
ander Prior, this is not a variety of Q. robur, but a dis-
tinct species.

Page 10. I have omitted in my list of oaks Quercus
occidentalis of Gay.

Page 13. Ilex aqui folium is now removed from the
Rhamnea, and placed by A. Brongriart in a family of
its own.

Page 28. A similar tendency to put forth fresh branches
when cut down, is noticed in the " Gardener's Chronicle"
for August 17, 1861, by Dr. Seemann, as existing in a
species of Fir which was found composing a forest in
Arcadia, one league and a-half from Tripolitza, called by
Heldreich Abies Regince Amalice. It is pronounced by
Murray a to be the same species as Abies Apollinis of
Link, which latter was omitted in my work, as having
been identified by Endlicher with P. pectinata, although
Goudon regards it the same as cephalonica.

Page 34. The anecdote related with regard to the first
introduction of the Cedar of Lebanon into France, was
extracted, without enquiry on my part, from an article
" On Coniferous Trees," which appeared in the No. of
the " Edinburgh Review" for October, 1864.

It turns out, however, to be a tissue of errors, occa-
sioned by blending into one, two stories utterly un-
connected, as I might have learnt before printing my
Essay, had the remarks of Dr. Asa Gray, inserted iu
" Silliman's Journal" for March, 1861, fallen in my way
when they first appeared.

It is indeed true, that the first seedling of the Cedar
of Lebanon which ever reached France, was brought
there by Bernard de Jussieu in his hat, just as is repre-

■ Hort. Soc. Proc, 1863.

sented in an engraving to Cap's popular work, entitled

L< MusSc iVHistoirc Xaturelle, 185 1. p. 15. But the plant
iu question was brought, not from the Holy Land, which
indeed Jussieu had never visited, but from England.

It is also true, that the seal and self-devotion which the
Reviewer erroneously ascribes to Bernard de Jussieu, iu
preserving the Cedar of Lebanon, was really evinced with
regard to another plant, the Coffee, by the individual to
whose care it had been confided.

It appears, that when the French Government wished
to introduce the cultivation of Coffee into their AY est
Indian Colonies, they despatched a vessel laden with
a few o( these plants to Martinique, In the course of
a voyage unusually protracted through contrary winds, the
crew were all placed upon short allowance, and the Coffee
plants in general perished of drought. One, however,
was kept alive by the captain, who divided with it the
scant v portion ot^ water that fell to his share, and this
solitary specimen became the parent of all those now
found in the Antilles.

The name of the captain, M. Peelieux. has been per-
petuated by the name Declieuxia, given to a genus allied
to the Coffee, in remembrance of Ins services.

By thus jumbling together these two stories, the Re-
viewer would seem to have concocted the anecdote, which
has been unwittingly transferred to the pages of my Essay.

Page 10, Dn James Mitchell has published in a distinct
pamphlet, a fuller account of the Citrus wood of the an-
cients, than is given in my Essay.

Page 50. ( '( rnus mascula is not the Cornel of English
Botanists, which is Cornus sanpuinea.

Page v7. r iu the Ann. oi Nat Hist., suggests

that the Lotus of Homer may have been Xitrarui tri-
iftntnta. a plant eonnnou m Bai ary.

ublicatbits frg ijxe %vA\ax.

A DESCRIPTION OF ACTIYE AND EXTINCT VOLCANOS,
OF EARTHQUAKES, AND OF THERMAL SPRINGS; With Remarks
on their Causes, Products, and Influence on the Condition of the Globe.
Second Edition, greatly enlarged. With Twelve Maps and Plates. Tayloh
and Fbancis, London, 1818. 8vo.

Price with Supplement, 1858, £1 Is.

BRIEF REMARKS ON THE CORRELATION OF THE NA-
TURAL SCIENCES. Drawn up with reference to the Scheme for the
Extension and the Better Management of the Studies of the University.
J. Vincent, Oxford, 1848. 8vo. Is.

A POPULAR GUIDE TO THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF
OXFORD, AND TO THE FIELDING HERBARIUM ANNEXED

TO IT. Second Edition. Sold only at the Garden. 16mo. 6d.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ATOMIC THEORY. Second
Edition, greatly enlarged, 1852. Printed at the Oxfoed Univeesity
Peess. 12mo. 6s.

CAN PHYSICAL SCIENCE OBTAIN A HOME IN AN
ENGLISH UNIVERSITY? An Inquiry suggested by some Remarks
contained in a late number of the "Quarterly Review." J. Vincent,
Oxford, 1853. 8vo. Is.

LECTURES ON ROMAN HUSBANDRY, delivered before the
University of Oxford ; comprehending an Account of the System of Agricul-
ture, the Treatment of Domestic Animals, the Horticulture, &c, pursued in
Ancient Times. Oxford and London : J. H. and J. Paekee. 8vo. 6s.

CLIMATE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF ITS
DIFFERENCES, AND INTO ITS INFLUENCE ON VEGETABLE
LIFE. Comprising the substance of Four Lectures delivered before the
Natural History Society, at the Museum, Torquay, in February, 1863.
Oxford and London : J. H. and J. Paekee. 8vo. 4s.

University of British Columbia Library

DUE DATE

»' ' i

FORM 3IO

L. I Kfi C- Z>^>

W8 V3

&7 DZ

U, I

■!■■''•

M i

■<

X j

•i r-

£3 1

<r i

— . r

Ld i

-I U.

Ld i

X. i

■ii.

<r

iV'i

Ld

-J L.
pf ,-

V,

AGRICULTURE

FORESTRY

LIBRARY

FORESTRY