I ESSAY oy THE TREES AND SHRUBS OF THE ANCIENTS : BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF J0xrr DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, INTENDED TO BE SUPPLEMENTARY TO THOSE ON BOMAN HUSBANDBY, ALREADY PUBLISHED. BV C. DAUBENY, M.D., F.R.S., PROFESSOR OF BOTANY AND RURAL ECONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. atib JOHN HENRY AND JAMES PARKER. 1865. (Irinttb bg gltssrs. parhtr, f ornmarhtt, iforb. PEEFACE. THE late Professor Sibthorp, in founding a Chair of Uural 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 Rusticce 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 9f the System of Agriculture, of the Treat- ment of Domestic Animals, and of the Horticulture pursued in Ancient Times," concluding with notices " of the Plants mentioned in Columella and Virgil." To this Publication the present Lectures may be 2091262 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 Florae 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 was chiefly contributed by M. A. L. a Fee ; and also the English translation of the same Author by Dr. Bostock and H. 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. I may also mention Sprengel's Historia Rei Her- PREFACE. v "barice ; the Flo're de 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 Apiciana, Heidelberg, 1830 ; Fraas, Synopsis Plantarum Florae Classicce, Miinchen, 1845; and Lenz, BotaniJc der alien Griechen und Homer, Grotha, 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 they 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 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. PAOI 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 Conifer . 1 LECTUEE 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 Cy tisus Crata5gus Arbutus Ornus Fraxinus TJlmus 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 Linum 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 Araygdalus Poterium Mespilus Pyrus Tamarix Ribes Bupleurum Philadelphus Sem- pervivum Myrtus Hedera Sambucus Lonicera Scabiosa Eruodea Conyza Santolina Artemisia Senecio Gnaphalium Staehelina Centaurea Cine- raria 64 Vlll CONTENTS. LECTURE IV. Shrubs of Greece and Italy belonging to the following Gen era . Erica Rhododendron Azalea Vaccinium Ligustrum Phillyrea Jasininum Convolvulus Lithospermum Onosma Origanum Teucrium Pe- riploca Solanum Lycium Verbascum Phlomis Rosmarinus Satureia Lavandula Salvia Thymus Mol ucell a Prasium Stachy s Vitex Salsola Sali- cornia Atriplex. Polygonum Laurus Daphne Passerina Osyris Elseagnus 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 q/"an enumeration of the Trees and Shrubs supposed to be indigenous in Greece and Italy, with their ancient Greek and Latin Synonymes . 145 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 ray list of oaks Quercus Occident alls of Gay. Page 13. Ilex aquifolium is now removed from the Rhamnece, 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 Regina 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, 1864, 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. scuted in an engraving to Cap's popular work, entitled Le Mmce d'Histoire Naturelle, 1854, p. 15. But the plant in question was brought, not from the Holy Land, which indeed Jussieu had never visited, but from England. It is also true, that the zeal and self-devotion which the Reviewer erroneously ascribes to Bernard de Jussieu, in 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 West Indian Colonies, they despatched a vessel laden with a few of 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 scanty portion of 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. Declieux, has been per- petuated by the name Declieuxia, given to a genus allied to the Coffee, in remembrance of his 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 jmges of my Essay. Page 40. Dr. James Mitchell has published in a distinct pamphlet, a fuller account of the Citrus wood of the an- cieuts, than is given in my Essay. Page 50. Cornus mascula is not the Cornel of Eng..sh Botanists, which is Cornus sanyuinea. Page 87. A writer in the Ann. of Nat. Hist., suggests that the Lotus of Homer may have been Nitraria tri- dentata, a plant common in Barbary. ON THE TEEES AND SHKUBS OF THE ANCIENTS. LECTUKE I. OF TREES PRODUCING FRUIT ACORNS AND RESIN. TTAVING 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, ^hx3w_majny_j:>f 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 2 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. Jujube, the Pomegranate, the Apricot, as well as the Olive, and probahly 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 Cydonia, from Crete ; the Damson, Primus Damascena, from Damascus ; the Olive, in the reign of Tarquinius Prisons, 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, Pistacia vera, L., 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, Moras 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 domes fica 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 fit 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 Mains 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, " Tristis sued, tardiqne saporis" The true Orange, on the contrary, does not appear to have been introduced into Italy till the ninth cen- tury after Christ. Alphonse Decandolle a 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 des 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 : " Quod potui, puero sylvestri ex arbore lecta Aurea mala decem 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 Thymel&a, 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 Pontica. 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 Graca. 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 Amcntacca, known to the ancients, the latter most of the Coniferoe. We shall see, however, that there are many which cannot be included in either division. The glandiferous seem to be comprehended under the common name of Quercus or Robur. Thus Pliny i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 7 speaks of the great Hercynian Forest as consisting of Robora contemporary with the creation of the world, and of gigantic size, respecting which he reports many marvels . 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 fyriyos of Theophrastus, who speaks of our Beech d under the name of 'O^vrj, 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 Csesar, Bell, Gall., lib. vi. c. 26, mentions the Reindeer, Bos cervi figum ; theAlces, 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. Quercua. 2. Eobur. 3. Esculus. 4. Cerria. 5. 6. Ilex two kinds. 7. Suber. 8. Hemeris. 9. ^Egilops. 10. Latifolia. 11. Haliphloeos. i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 9 Now the following species of European Oaks are distinguished by modern Botanists, arranged after the plan of Decandolle in his late revision of the family of Cupuliferae 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 Sessiliflora, Found throughout Europe. Pedunculata, Pubescens. 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. lallota, found also > Greece and Turkey, in Syria f . j 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, false Cork-tree. Italy. Q. ^Egilops, Valonia e. Levant. Q. coccifera h , 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. aJpestris, and Q. Uispanica 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 Robur, 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 Robur 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 * JEgilops is found in Syria, and its acorns, which are often very large, are eaten by man. Ilooker, Linn. Tr., v. xxiii. In Syria the most common Oak is pseudo-coccifera, which Hooker thinks may be a variety of coccifera, Linn. Tr., vol. xxiii. Abraham's Oak at Mamre, of which Hooker gives 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 we 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 Esculus. Some writers identify the latter with the Beech, regarding it as a synonym for the Fagns of the Latins, and the (frrjyos 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 fisculus thus : " Nemorumque Jovi quse 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 " Quaiitum vertice ad auras JEthereas, tantum radice ad Tartara tendit." A description, however, which he transfers to the Quercus in the 4th JSneid. 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. Martin 1 justly remarks, that although the tree may be the tyrjyo? of Theophrastus, it cannot be the Fag us 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, properly 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 Plorace 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 Ifemeris, rj/jLepls. The latter term was evidently applied to it by the 1 Notes on Georg. 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 Decandolle j 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 TIpivo? 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 J 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 cocci/era, This scarlet berry, or grain, as Pliny calls it, was highly prized in dyeing until the discovery of the cochineal insect, w r hich 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 Aquifolium, which is, as already remarked, our common Holly. The Halipklceos 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 are, have a taste so bitter and forbidding that no animal will touch them. The description seems to correspond best with the Q. pseudo-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/^Aoto?, a kind of Oak described by Theophrastus much in the same terms as those which Pliny uses, and deriving its name from Ay, ' salt,' and (f)Xoio?, ' 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 Bayonne k . The time of shedding the leaves is, indeed, not characteristic of a species, for the Lucombe Oak 1 , 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 111 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 use, corks would be rarely wanted for the purposes to which they are mainly applied at the present time. The jZfyiloj'js is stated to be the loftiest tree of all, and to be attached to wild, uncultivated spots, producing, according to Theophrastus, the hardest and best timber of any. It is probably the species now known as ^^filojjs, 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 dfytiops, so that it seems difficult to identify it. It is called TrXaTvfyvXXos by Theophrastus : query Qucrcus Tourncfortii Pcrs., which is generally regarded as a synonym of Q. cerris, or the Turkey Oak. m Pint, in vita Camilli. i.] OP 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 Eobur, the nature of which is not known 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 Ilex is less wholesome to them. The acorn of the Quercus 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 : Fruits. Appearing the 1st year. The 2nd year QUERCUS. Leaves. Ancient names. Deciduous Robur ,, ,, Esculus Persistent Ilex Suber f Deciduous Hemeris \ Cerris Modern names. Robur Esculus Ilex and Coccifera Suber Toza Cerris Persistent Halephlaous Pseudo-suber (?) JSgilops JEgilops 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 Conifers or Fir tribe. These Pliny divides into Abies and Pinus : and modern botanists, having separated the Abietince into two groups namely, the one with leaves solitary or in two ranks, the other in clusters of i.j 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 'EAarr?, 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 xylvestris, 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 Siculd), as existing in all the southern parts of Europe. 2. Pinus pinea, Stone Pine, \\LTVS of Dioscorides n , met with on the sandy shores of Western Pelo- ponnesus. 3. Pinus maritima, Maritime Pine, YlevKrj of Dios- 11 i. 86. c2 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. lialepemis, 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, or 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. India, 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 'EXarrj, let us consider the properties assigned to that tree. 1. It was especially useful in ship -building. Hence in Euripides p 'EAar?; is used for a ship. 2. It grows chiefly on the summits of mountains. 3. It resembles in form the P. picea. Flora Neap. P Phsen. 208. i.] 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 Picea. 6. Lastly, it is inferior in the quality of its timber to the last-named species. Now of ihePinmes 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 Pinus 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 TUEES 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 Caesar r , 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. Novenlris xv. 11. 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. Aristotle* 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 hecome 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 wild fig-trees ' 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 with 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 only 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 says u , "that in a forest of natural growth the female trees will remain barren if " 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 V 1 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 virum referens, hssc 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 Cospere et coelo liberiore frui, Frondosique apices se conspexere, virique Ilia sui vultas, conjugis ille suae Haurire et blandum vinis sitientibus ignem Optatos foetus sponte tulere sua. Ornarunt ramos gemmis, mirabile dictu ! Implevere suos melle liquente favos." j 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 dicecous 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, " Vivuut in venerem frondes, omnisque vicissiin Felix arbor amat, nutaut in niutua Palmse Foedera, populeo suspirat Populus acta Et PJatuni Platauis, Aluoque 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 white 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, (ovpavofi-qK^^) and describes as growing in the Isle of Calypso, along with the Alder, the Poplar, and other lofty trees : NJJCTOU ITT ecr^aTirjs, odt 8ev8pen paupa Tre(pvKfi, /, T a'iyeipos T', e'Aan; T* ?)v ov " 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 e'Aarr; indeed is used by Dioscorides in quite a different sense, namely, to indicate the young 1 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 eXdrrj, probably the Antirrhinum oron- fium of Linna?us. 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 . 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. ' See Selby 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 wood is, the harder is the protuberance. Modern writers 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 TT'LTVS of Dioscorides. The former writer states, that it was 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 Pinus 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 Sell>y 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 TrevKrj aypia, and Pliny says that it is nothing else than a wild variety of Pine. lie 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 Tibuhis ; 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 Pinus. 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 Tidulus, 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. JiaZepensis, 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, Pinus laricio, is more probably the one intended. It seems to be the same which Theophrastus e calls TrevKr) iSaia, and which he there distinguishes from TrevKr) TrapaXia?, the Pinaster. Next we find noticed by Pliny the Lariat, 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 Tceda 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 Tceda of the ancients may perhaps be iden- tified with the Pinus Miiyho of modern botanists, the Torch Pine of the French, the Pmnilio, 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 following modern species : Leaves in pairs. in fives. Solitary, evergreen. 11 5 Fascicled, deciduous. ' 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.) Ancient. Pinaster. Tfeda, Picea. Piuus. Strobus (?) f . Excelsa g . Abies. Modern. ( Pinus halepeusis, or ( inaritima. - - p 111GB. Abies pectinata. excelsa. Larix. gailica. Larix. LECTUKE II. CONIFEBOUS TBEES NOT INCLUDED BY FLINT UNDER THE HEAD OF PICIFEB^; CEDAE OF THE ANCIENTS CEDAES OF THE MODEENS JUNIPEB CITEUS OF THE ANCIENTS TAXUS OTHEE TBEES NOT BELONGING TO THE TWO PRECEDING DIVISIONS, ENUMEEATED ACCOBDING TO THEIE PLACE IN THE NATURAL SYSTEM TILIA ACEE CEECIS CYTISUS CBAT^GUS COBNUS ABBUTUS FBAXINUS ULMUS CELTIS ALNUS S ALIX POPULUS BETULLA CAEPINUS OSTEYA 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 Ke'5/ooy, 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 C.Libani, C. Atlantica, or C. Deodar a. See Scott and Liddell. D 34 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. Theophrastus, indeed, mentions the large size which the KtSpo? 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 were 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 Italy, 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 Lebanon, where this Cedar is more abundant. D 2 36 THE TREES AND SHRCJBS [LECT. tree in other regions does not appear to be adapted for the purposes to which in ancient times the Cedar was applied. Virgil speaks of the Cedrus in common with the Cypress as employed in house-building : " Dant utile lignum Navigiis pinos, domibus cedrumque cupressosque." In the 7th book of the ^Eneid, 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 etiam veterum effigies ex ordine avorum Antiqua e cedro, Vestibule 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. c Georg. ii. 443. ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 37 This writer remarks' 1 , that according to some there are two sorts of Juniper, apKevdo?, 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, Keftpov, the Lycian and the Phoenician. Others, as the inhabitants of Ida, know only of one kind, which is like to the dpnevOos ; but there is a difference in the leaf, which in the Kedpov is hard-pointed and prickly, but in the dpKevOos softer. The dpKtvOos, also, seems to be the loftier tree of the two. There are people, nevertheless, who apply the name of Kedpov to the dpKv6os, as well as to the tree which more properly receives that appellation ; or else, calling the dpKevOos, Ktdpov, they distin- guish the tree properly called KtSpov, by the name of ot^vKeSpov. Both have many branches and a knotty timber. The heart-wood of the Kedpov resists decay, and is red, but in the KtSpov it is fragrant, whilst in the dpKevOos it is not so. The fruit of the Kedpov is yellow, of the size of that of the Myrtle, and possesses an agreeable smell. The dpKtvOos 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 wood 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. c Lib. xiii. c. 11. ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 39 These are Juniperus communis, dpK.ev6os /jLiKpa ; Juniperus oxycedrus, Kedpof fjiiKpa ; Juniperus phoe- nicia, fipdOvs erepov ; Juniperus sabina, ftpdOvs. 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 dpKevdos jj.LKpa. 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 KtSpov. 3. J. pkoenicia, or lycia, 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 PpdOvs. 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. But the Juniperus thurifera, a 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 occidentalis 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 espe- f 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 was 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 wood, 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 marmoream 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 iinitatur 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 was the Thuya articulata, or Cal- litris quadrivalvis, 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 h . 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, Ovov, 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 Ammon. The Cupressus of Pliny, and the KvirdpLTros 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 " JS"eque harum quas colis arbortim Te prreter invisas Cupressos Ulla brevem dorainum sequetur." HORACE. Although in reality the plant is moncecous, 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 laterally 1 . 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 Tazus, 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 etiain magnis Helicouis montibus arbor, Floris odore horainem 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 MtAo? in Theophrastus k , who describes its principal pro- perties with tolerable accuracy. In Italy it seems to be more common, and ac- cording to Virgil 1 , bows were made of it, as at present " Iturseos taxi torquentur in arcus." It thrives best, however, in colder climates, as the ancients were aware " Apertos Bacchus amat colles, aquilonem et frigora taxi m ." I now proceed to certain trees recognised by ancient writers, which do not belong either to Pliny's class of Frugiferce, or to those compre- > EC. ix. 30. k H. PI. iii. 9. 1 Georg. ii. 448. m Ibid., 113. 44 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. bended by him under the heads of Crlanduliferce and Piciferce. And first with regard to the Lime or Linden, which was known to the Greeks by the name of SaiJLvo? 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 o-fyevSafjivos is said to be de- rived from crfyevftovri , the bezel of a ring, or the part encompassing the stone, which required to be hard and compact ; and at any rate crfyevftaiJiVLvos is used adjectively in Aristophanes p for tough, or as we should say, heart of oak. Now Theophrastus q mentions another variety which he calls Zvyia, the wood of which, he says, is yellow, and crisp, or twisted in its fibre (ouAoz/), and he adds that the people of Stagira recognised a third, affording a white and tough (evivov) timber, which is called KXivorpoyov, 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 waiters, 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, " Ach. 181. i H. PI. iii. 10. ' See Stapel, Notes in Theoph. ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 47 called eygia, 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 Zvyta 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-platanus, 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 oltusifoUum, 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 s , it is probable that this may be the one referred to by Pliny, and also perhaps by Ovid. 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 1 . 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. Munchen, 1845. ' Lib. xvi. c. 27. ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 49 it to be mentioned by Theophrastus u under the name of ^rjfjivSa. For this, however, there ap- pears to be no satisfactory evidence, as the ac- count given by the Greek writer seems not suf- ficiently descriptive. Oytisus laburnum is mentioned by Theophrastus x under the name of KoXovrea. Pliny 7 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 Cratsegus, we may mention 1st, Cratcegus Aria, or Mountain Ash, existing both in Italy and Greece, and probably described by Theophrastus under the name of apLa z . 2nd, Torminalis, 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, Cratcegus oxyacantha, our Hawthorn, which is supposed to be the Spina alba of Columella, and by Dumolin, the ' tt H, PI. iii. 14. * Ibid., 17. r xvi. 31. z H. PI. iii. 4. a Lib. xv. c. 23. 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 Linnaeus, is the Cornel of Eng- lish botanists. Theophrastus describes it under the name of Kpaveia c . 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 Ko/jiapoy. Theophrastus describes it as a tree not grow- ing to large dimensions, possessing an edible fruit, called fjie^aLKvXov, 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, KoiXov cocnrep a>di> ey/ceKoAayu/>iefOj>. 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 idcea, Vaccinium myrtillus. b Lib. xxi. c. 39. H. PI. iii. 12. " Lib. xv. c. 31. H. PI. iii. 15.' < Lib. v. 939. ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 51 Pliny g 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 Unedo and of Arlutus. Dioscorides likens the tree to the Quince. Virgil alludes to it in Eclog. in., 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 Sibthorp as the Kopapos of Dioscorides. Yet Theophrastus speaks of a tree he calls av- Spdxvrj, or dv$pd\\r}, like the Ko^apos 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 Adrachne, but that his Adrachne, or as in another place l he calls it, Andrachne, is a tree similar to the Arlutus in appearance, but with smaller leaves, and evergreen. He describes the bark as peeling off, as Theophrastus had done. Lib. xv. c. 28. h Lib. xiii. c. 46. 1 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 Ornus in his Georgics j . 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 Ornus is distinguished ? " Ornusque incanuit albo Flore pyi'i." 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 Ornus 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 /xeA/a, 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. ' Lib. ii. c. 66, et seq. 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 fteA/a and /3ou- fjieXia, the latter growing in Macedonia, and of great size. Perhaps the former may be the Ornus, the latter the Fraxinus. Pliny notices also four varieties of Ulmus, or Elm, the TrreAea of the Greeks. Two of these were known, he says, to the Greeks, namely, the Moun- tain Elm, which is the larger of the two, and that of the plains, which 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, which 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, we 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 Ulmus 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 Acoros*. Pliny ! 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. xiii. c. 32. ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 55 Much need not be said of the Alder and the Willow. The former, the Alnus glutinosa of L., the Alnus of the Latins, and the KXrjOpos 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, Populus of the Latins, aiyeipos of the Greeks, of which the ancients recognised only two, or at most three species. In Homer's Odyssey we read of aiyeipos n , the motion of the leaves of which is compared to the rapid twinkling of the fingers of the maids of Alcinous when plying their shuttles, At 8' icrrovs vcri Kal fjXaKara orp<^>a><7ti/ "Hfj-fvai, old re i> &' odovemv a7roXet/3erai vypov eXaiov. " So close the work, that oil diffused in vain Glides off innocuous, and without a stain," m 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 passage , Homer couples with aiyeipo? the epithet vdoTpcxfrrj?. 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 'A^pai?, the lofty tree alluded to in the Iliad p , seems to have been the White Poplar, cor- responding to the AevKrj 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. o Lib. xvii. P Lib. xiii. c. 389, 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 candicans, 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 grceca, 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 Manetti r , 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 hippocastanum, 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. IL] 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 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, Carpinus betulus, is not common in Greece, but is noticed by Sibthorp as occurring on some of its loftier mountains, and in the neigh- 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, Ostrf/a vulgaris, is the Os- trya of the Latins, and the ocrrpv? of the Greeks. It is alluded to by Theophrastus under the latter name x . 1 II. PI. iii. 14. Lib. xi. c. 2. II. PI. iii. 10. 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 Platanus of Pliny, and the HXdravos 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 cries 2 . The Plane-tree was afterwards imported from thence into Sicily, and had become in the time of * Lib. xiii. c. 37. * 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 Thermopyla?, " 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. * f . ^ LECTUKE III. SHRUBS OF GREECE AND ITALY BELONGING TO THE FOLLOWING GENERA: CLEMATIS BEI1BEBIS CHEIEANTHUS CAPPAEIS CISTUS DIANTHUS LINUM HTPEEICUM HIBISCUS TITIS EUTA COEIAEIA STAPHTLEA EUONTMUS ILEX ZIZTPHTJS EHAMNUS PISTACIA EHUS ULEX SPAETIUM CTTISUS CEEATONIA COLTJTEA AKAGYEIS COEONILLA MEDI- CAQO PSOEALEA ANTHTLLIS ONONIS ASTEAGALUS HEDTSAEUM LOTUS ACACIA EOSA EUBUS PEUNUS AMTGD ALUS POTE EIUM ME SPILUS PYEUS TAM AEIX EIBES BUPLEUEUM PHILADELPHUS SEMPEETIVUM MTETUS HEDEEA SAMBUCUS LONICEEA SCABIOSA EENODEA COXTZA SAKTOLINA AETEMISIA SE5TECIO GNAPHALIUM ST-SHELINA CENTAUEEA CINEEAEIA. 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 KA^/xarmy ; appellations given to them from K\f)fj,a, a vine-twig, or from their in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 65 climbing habit, (/cAi/zaf, a ladder). These terms, however, probably included other climbing plants, as the wild Vine is called in modern as well as in ancient Greek AcA^/xa : and it is very probable that the Periploca Grceca, a creeper common in Greece ; the Bryony, oyuTreAo? AeJ/c?;, 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 ofMhammis, 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, arid 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 Ber- beris found in Persia, and in countries still further to the East. It is conjectured, that the Berberry may be meant by the term Sjnna appendix, a plant described by Pliny b as a thorn with red berries hanging from its branches, and that ovaK.dv6a in Galen may imply the same. This word, as Sibthorp informs us, is still used in Greece to signify the Berberry. The KoAourea of Mount Ida, mentioned by Theophras- tus, is by some supposed to be the Berberis cretica; but I shall speak of this hereafter. CRUCIFER.E. 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. 13. Lib. jij. c . 16. in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 67 The term ' AXvvo-ov 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 ' AXvcraov of the Greeks. Cheiranthus cheiri, indeed, may have been desig- nated by the term XevKoiov d , but Sibthorp regards the C. tricuspidatus as better entitled to that name, especially considering its resemblance to the draw- ing of XtvKoiov 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/ 1 Of these, the Cistus creticus, common in the Islands of the d See " Roman Husbandry," p. 240. e p. 253. F2 68 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. Archipelago, is identified by Sibthorp with the Ad8ai>ov of Dioscorides, whilst the 0. villosus is set down by him as corresponding with K/O-TO? appr)v, and C. salvifolius with /c/crros" 6r)\vs. 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. Herodotus f tells us that ArjSavov comes from Arabia, and that it is gathered from the beards of goats, to which it is found adhering. Dioscorides g repeats the same story, but Pliny b 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. De M. M. i. 128. b xii. 37. in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 69 It is probable that all tbe species of Cistus known to tbe ancients were confounded under this same name, which in Greek was KIO-&O? or KLCTTOS\ a term nearly allied to KLCTO-OS, 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 arloreus and fruticosus. Theophrastus k speaks of a plant he calls Aioy oivOos, which Neander, quoted by Atheneus, states to be used for chaplets, ap- plying to it the epithet of evcodr)?, 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. LINUM. The common Flax, Linum usitatissimum, called Xlvov 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 COBS- 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., II. PI. k Bk. vi. 70 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. H. coris y has obtained its name from being sup- posed to be the same which Dioscorides 1 speaks of under the name of ACO/W, a plant which he says is also called vTrcptKov. 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 11 ," 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 Pliny 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, praetenera acino, et uva tarn parva, ut nisi pinguissimo solo colere non prosit." 1 iii. 164. m Bk. 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- fera 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 Cornichon 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, 1840. 72 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. RlJTA. Ruta graveolens is common in Greece and Italy, and R. 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 \\Tjyavov 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. STAPIIYLEA. Staphylea pinnata, Bladder-nut, noticed by Sib- thorp, seems to be mentioned by Pliny t under the name of Staphylodendron. 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. Euonymus europceus, or Spindle-tree, is found in Greece and Italy. Pliny u alludes to a tree of that name, and Thcophrastus probably describes the same under the name of evcovvfjiov. " 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 aquifolium, or common Holly, has been already alluded to v . It was called aquifolia by the Latins, and oyuAaf 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 Zizt/phus, 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 Ila- Xiovpi, which leads him to regard it as the HaA/- 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 australis, then, of southern Europe, P. aculeatus of Decandolle, Zizyphus paliurus of older botanists, would hardly correspond with the Palmrus of Pliny and Theophrastus, although the r p. 13. * Lib. xv. 14. r See " 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 PaUurus 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 PaUurus with 'Pdjjivos TpLo?, a young branch or sprout. Upon the whole, then, it seems probable, as Dumolin has suggested, that the 'Pa/zi/oy 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 'PdfjLvos. 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 c Lib. xxiy. 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. terelinthus, 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 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 ^ylvos 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 crxoivo?, the Scirpus holoschoenus of L., according to Sibthorp ; the AnJropogon nardus or schcenanthus of Fee. Theophrastus 6 likewise mentions the P. terelin- thus, under the names of TepepivOo? and TtpfjuvOos, 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. e H. PI., iii. 14. 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- linthus, 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 Rhus, 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 Ko/cKuy/ota 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. Hi. 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 Ulex of the moderns was designated in ancient Greece by the term Theophrastus h describes a plant which he calls ^Kopirios, 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 acnraXaOos of Theocritus. But in the first place, it seems by no means likely that the o-Kopwlos was our Furze, since this does not occur in Sicily, whilst some of the species of Spartium are provided with long and much more formidable thorns. Secondly, I do not find that Theophrastus iden- h Lib. i. 3. in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 81 tifies the orKopirios with the 'AcrTraAatfoy : on the contrary, he places the latter amongst the plants employed for perfumes. Dioscorides mentions two kinds of 'Ao-TraAa^oy, 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/xfot, which we have translated, in accordance with Dumolin, as meaning briars : " Els opos OKX epTTfis, P.TI dvd\nros (px f > Barre, 'Ev yap ope i 'Pdp,voi re Kal 'Acmd\adoi Kop.6a>iri" 1 Go not to the mountain, Battus, bare-footed, For on the mountain lurk the Rhamni, and the Aspalathi.' The Spartium villosum and spinosum (or infes- tum), 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 ' Acnra^arof in Greece at the present day, considers this plant to be the 'AcnraXado? of Dios- corides, and would therefore probably have agreed to regard it as the one alluded to by the poet. 1 Lib. iii. c. 52. 82 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. SPARTIUM. Spartium was probably confounded by tbe 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 ^irdpriov was used by the Greeks, or at least by Dioscorides. Thus Virgil speaks of the lenta genista^, and Pliny 1 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 ao-7ra\a0o? 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" 1 " that this is a mistake, and that the Cytisus of the ancients was in fact the plant now known by the name of Medicago arborea. CERATONIA. The Carob-tree, or Ccratonia siliqua, has been already noticed, p. 2. Pliny alludes to it in lib. " Georg., ii. 1 2. ' Lib. xxiv. c. 40. m p. 169. in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 83 xiii. 16 and xv. 26, under the name of SiUqua, adding in the former passage that the lonians called it Ceraunia, and in the latter describing its pods very exactly: " Prsedulces siliquae 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 arborescens, 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 11 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. Dioscorides also mentions it under the name of and avayvpov. CORONILLA. Of Coronilla Sibthorp mentions seven species in Greece, of which only two, emerus and glauca, are fruticose. In Italy also the Coronilla emerus alone " Lib. xxvii. 13. M. Jf. iii. 157. G2 84 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. reaches the dimensions of a shrub. Pliny describes it under the name of securidaca, and the Greeks under that of YleXrjKiv o?. MEDICAGO. The only shrub belonging to this genus has been shewn to be the Cytism of the ancients p . PSORALEA. Psoralea lituminosa is a shrubby plant noticed by Sibthorp in Greece. It is probable that the ancient Greeks confounded it with the trefoil (rptyvXXov), one species of which Dioscorides q de- scribes as having the smell of asphalt when old, and as therefore sometimes called aa-fyaXnov. 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, BarlaJovis and Hermann/ice, 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 f See " Roman Husbandry," p. 170. > M. M. iii. 123. ' 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 argyrophylfa, 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 Ebenus cretica, Theophrastus is supposed to allude to* under the name of "EflevTj or Kurtcros". It appears to be a plant of Oriental origin u . ONONIS. Sibthorp mentions one shrubby species as in- digenous in Greece, namely, Ononis crispa ; but it is probable that the avcovis of Theophrastus v and of Dioscorides x was one of the common herbaceous species probably the Rest-harrow, which goes by the name of dvcoveida 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. ' vi. 5. x iii. 18. 86 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. mountainous places, is now called Tpdya.K.av6a and TerpdyKaOa. 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 t 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 YloTrjpLov of Diosco rides, the latter his TpdyoLKavOa?. 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. Alhagi. 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 OnobrycUs of Pliny 2 , but this appears rather doubtful. LOTUS. This genus usually consists of herbaceous plants, but Sibthorp mentions one shrubby species in Greece, Lotus Dorycnium. It is not known by what name this plant was distinguished in ancient ' Bot. Reg. 1340, Misc. p. 38. Lib. xxiv. c. 98. in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 87 Greece. The Lotus of the Lotophagi, celebrated in the 9th Book of the Odyssey, " Tobv 8' os TIS Xwroto (f)dyoi [i(\ir)8ea xapTrbv, OvKV OTrayyeiXat TraXtv ij6f\(v ovde vefffdai, AXX' avrov /3ovXoi/ro /xer' ai/Spacrt A.a>To(pdyoicriv ACBTOI/ fpeTTTO^evoi p.evfp.(v, vocrrov re Xa$ecr$ai," " And whoso tasted of their flowery meat Cared not with tidings to return, but clave Past 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 Nebe/c 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 writers, 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. idceus, 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 idaia. The same species exist in Italy, but only in mountainous situations in both countries. Pliny c also mentions three varieties of Rubus, but one of them, which he calls cynosbatus, 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. Dioscorides (1 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 1 Lib. xvi. c. 70. '' De M. 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 of Theophrastus e , and with the of Dioscorides f ; the P. prostrata with the Chamce- 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.), Sorlus domestica (Dec.), our Service-tree, may have been alluded to by Theophrastus g under the name of 'Ovrj, of which ovov was the fruit. Virgil h speaks of a kind of cider being made from it : " Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea sorbis." By Pliny, Mains, 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 Sroi/S?; of Dioscorides, a name which its present vernacular appellation, 'Ao-ror/S??, confirms. The word *2Toi(3rj also occurs in Theophrastus, and the corresponding one, Stobe, in Pliny. e Theoph. iii. 7. ' Lib. i. c. 174. * 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 'Of ua/cca^a 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^/oas 1 of Theophrastus and Dios- corides, and it is now called dx\adia; whilst an- other, the Pyrus aria, is conjectured to be the 'Apia of Theophrastus \ 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 P. mains, the Apple, was the M^Aea or ' of Dioscorides, by which latter name it is known at the present day in Greece ; P. cydonia, the Quince, was the KvSavia fj.rj\a of Theophrastus and Dios- corides. TAMARIX. Tamarix Gallica is a shrub which occurs com- monly in Greece and Italy, and to which Pliny j 1 Lib. iii. c. 4. > 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 M.vpiKrj of Dioscorides k ; Pliny, however, states that the Myrice is also known as the Erica, 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. RIBES. 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. Sibthorpianum, the former of which he identifies with the SecreAt aWlo- TTLKOV of Dioscorides. k Lib. i. c. 105. 92 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. PHILADELPHIA. The Philadelphus 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 0tAa<5eA0oy spoken of by Athenseus J 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 'Aelfaov TO fjieya 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 aelfyoov 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 'Ae/ct>oz>, 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 Deipnosophistce, 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 avSpdx^) and by others TrjXtyiov, 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 J3uphthalmus 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 'Ae/^ooi/ TO fteya, although it is quite possible that the former may have been sometimes confounded with it. MYRTUS. The Myrtle, so luxuriant in Itaty, 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 - Lib. xxv. 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 M.vpo-lvr) 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 KITTOS, and Dioscorides under that of KLO-CTOS-, whilst Pliny , who gives it the name of Edera^ 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. 18. Lib. xvi. c. 62. in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 95 only the trailing variety of the plant, which in that condition bears no fruit. The Slack 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/iata/er?? of Dioscorides ; and S. nigra, common Elder, with the O.KTTJ 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 lib. xvi. c. 42, he mentions the Sambucus as one of the best of trees for timber ; and in lib. xv. c. 34, he alludes to the fruit of the Sam- bucus 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 q , describing it as thriving especially, but not exclusively, in watery places. This, then, is the larger kind of Elder noticed by ancient naturalists, including no doubt all the species indigenous in the south of Europe, ex- cepting the S. efadus, which is clearly pointed out by Dioscorides 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 Arcadiae, venit, quern vidimus ipsi Sanguineis ebuli baccis minioque rubentem." LONICERA. Although five species of Honeysuckle are no- ticed as occurring in Greece, and no less than nine in Italy, it is difficult to say by what names they were recognised in ancient times. Pliny r describes a plant called Clymenos, with leaves like the Ivy, numerous branches, and a " H. PI., i. 6, and iii. 12. ' Lib. xxv. c. 33. in.] OP 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 KAu- /zei/of and HepiKXv/jLevov of Dioscorides, Sibthorp is disposed to regard as the Convolvulus arvensis, and C. sepium, of modern botanists. Dumolin conjectures that a plant named A'iyi\os by Theocritus was the Honeysuckle Tat fiev e'/icu KVTKTOV re Kal AiyiAoi* alyes f8ovri, Kal "Si^ivov irartovTi, Kal tv Ko/xdpotcrt Kf^yvrai s . ' For my goats browse upon the Cytisus and the ^Egiloa, and 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. 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 Asperula calalrica of L., the Sherardia foetida of Lamarck, but it cannot be identified with any classical plant. CONYZA. Four shrubby species are noticed by Sibthorp, one of which, C. Candida, he suspects to be the "ApKTiov 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 YvafydXiov of Dios- corides. Santolina chamcecyparissus-\ 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 IloAiOf 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. 16. 1 Lib. iii. c. 114. T Lib. xxi. c. 20, 21, 84. in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 99 the aprefjacria 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 afytvOiov, 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 Chamcedrys, 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 Apiciana, Heidelberg, 1831. b Lib. xxv. c. 106. H 2 100 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. spring, and ye/>a>t> , 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 ofSenecto, 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. stcechas, also called Helichrysum stce- chas, which occurs both in Greece and in Italy. In Greece at present this plant is known by the name of a^apavdov (everlasting), one of those which Dioscorides assigned to it. This author states, that it is synonymous with 'RXiypvarov and \pvo-dv- 0[jLoi>, 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 (KOfjLrjv} 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 Helichrysum of Pliny. The latter, however, must not be confounded with the 'EAetoxpucroy of Theophrastus , 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 chamcepeuce, which other botanists consider as a Stcehelina, may perhaps be the one designated by Dioscorides e by the name of \afjiai7revKr). 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. 10.2 THE TREES AND SHRUBS, &c. [LECT. in. 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 Centaurea 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. 1 Lib. xxv. c. 30. LECTUKE IY. SHRUBS OP GREECE AND ITALY BELONGING TO THE FOLLOWING GENERA: ERICA RHODODENDRON AZALEA VACCINIUM LIGUSTRUM PHILLYREA JASMINUM CONVOLVULUS LITHOSPER- MUM ONOSMA ORIGANUM TEUCRIUM PERIPLOCA 8OLANUM LTCIUM VERBASCUM PHLOMI8 ROSMARINUS SATUREIA LAVANDULA SALVIA THTMUS MOLUCELLA PRASIUM STACHTS VITEX SALSOLA 8ALICORNIA ATHIPLEX POLTQONUM LAURUS DAPHNE PASSERINA OSYRIS EL^EAGNUS ARISTOLOCHIA EUPHORBIA BUXUS EPHEDRA ASPARAGUS ALOE RUSCUS SMILAX. KEMARKS ON THE DECAY or SPECIES. CONCLUDING OB- SERVATIONS. ERICA. CIBTHORP enumerates six species of Heaths, including that now called Calluna nulgaris, as occurring in Greece, and the same species are common in Italy. Of these he identifies one, viz. the herbacea or carnea, with the epeUrj 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 cpeiKr) as a shrubby or bushy tree like the Tamarisk (/jLvpLKr)}, 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 M.vpiKT) was often applied to the larger kinds of Heaths, 104 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. such as the Erica arborea, 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 JJ.VPLKT] 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 Xenophon a 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 'Po<5o- SevSpov of Dioscorides, are identified by Sibthorp 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 was 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 Husbandry 6 " 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- berry g , under the name of a^ireXos rfj$ 'Idrjs, but c Voyage an Levant, vol. ii. p. 226. d See also " Bot. Magazine," p. 433. e p. 266. l Fl. Virg. ' H. PI. iii. 17. 106 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. Sibthorp, who notices the V. myrtittus as occurring in the mountains of Bithynia, does not identify it with any of the plants mentioned by Dioscorides. LIGUSTRUM. The Ligustrum vulgar e, or Privet, is a common shrub both in Greece and Italy, but I have pointed out h 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 (f)t\Xvpea 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 Forskahl 1 , its name is derived. CONVOLVULUS. Three shrubby species are mentioned by Sib- thorp ; and one, C. cneorum, is noticed by Manetti. h Roman Husbandry, p. 239. ! Fl. sEffypt. Aral., p. 59. iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 107 But it is probable tbat tbe 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. sepium, which Dioscorides says winds round trees, and in summer forms entire arbours. He calls it oy>uAa Aeta. 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 1 both speak of a plant called in Latin Lithospermum, and in Greek At#oo-7reyo/xo//, from the hard, stony 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. fruticosa. 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 n assist us further, in speaking of the same plant under the Greek name of k Lib. xxvii. c. 74. ' M. M. iii. 148. m Lib. xxvii. c. 86. . n 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 AiKTafj.vo? 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. 'O/j/yaz/o^, corrupted in modern Greek to piyavi. Origanum majorana, a common species in Italy, seems to have been distinguished by the name Amaracits by the Romans, and ^d^vyov 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 Dioscorides under the name of TevKplov, which, he says, is also called XafiaiBpvs, as this plant goes by the name of \ajJLai8pva at the pre- sent day. Teucrium poliiim is supposed to be the Ylo\iov of Dioscorides 11 , and the Polium 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. 124. '< xxi. 21. iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 109 in medicinal efficacy. The smaller Folium may be Teucrium montanum ; the larger one T.polium. I have, however, already pointed out that Du- molin maintains that the floAjoz/ of the Greeks, and the Folium alluded to by Pliny, was the Santo- Una 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 when 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, Sibthorp 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 Solatium coagulans of Linnaeus, the Sanctum of Forskahl, and the Hiero- cliunticum of Dunal, described by the latter in De- candolle's Prodromus. Robinson, therefore, in his "Biblical Researches 8 ," 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 l , that the latter plant was an Asclepias. It is true, that the Asclepias gigantea or procera, the Osher 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. * See Kitto's " Physical History of the Holy Land." u See Robinson's "Physical Geography of the Holy Land," 1865, p. 215. 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. Pliny y 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 t or of the allied genera Atropa 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 M he considers to have been the Passerina hirsuta of Sibthorp. Another variety of Laurus is called by Pliny c taxa, 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. * Georg. ii. 213; Eclog. ii. 49. " iv. 170. b iv. 169. c xv. 34. 122 THE TRE"ES AND SHRUBS [LKCT. 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 Ideean, is also designated by the name Qihypoglottion, whilst Dioscorides describes the plant he calls 'Idaia P/a, as having leaves like the wild Myrtle, and upon them small twisted appendages (e'AtAcey), 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 Idsean plant, as though it were distinct from the former. In another place Dioscorides mentions the Alex- andrian Laurel as synonymous to the C/iamcedaphne, 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 E. 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 Ruscus racemosus, 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 Ruscus, we may be disposed to believe with Sibthorp, that the Aa^yr; 'A\cdv8peia of Dioscorides was the iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 123 R. hypoglottion, Xa/xeu&x^f?; the R. hypophyllum, Mvpalvr] aypia the R. aculeatus. An old botanist of the sixteenth century, Fabius Colonna, in his work entitled 3>vro/3a(rai>o?, Neapoli, 1592, first pointed out the resemblance between the Radix Idcea and the Ruscus hypoglossum, 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 Dioscorides 6 under the name of ccru/ny, 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 London'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 e'Aa/a aWiOTTLKr] of Dioscorides, but Fraas questions this identification. The e'Aaiay^oy of Theophrastus was a marsh plant, and either the Myrica gale, or the Salix babylonica. AHISTOLOCHIA. Two shrubby species are noticed by Sibthorp in Greece, viz. A. sempervirens and boetica, one also, A. sipho, by Manetti, in Italy. A. boetica is identified by Sibthorp with the 'ApicrroAox/a /cA^/mrm? 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 Theophrastns and in Dioscorides of ' ApLcrroXo^La 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. xxv. c. 54. h Lib. xxv. 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 Tithymalus, 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. TiOvfjiaXos, or Ti^u/uaAAoy, 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 TiOv^aXof apprjv, Th., \apOKtas, Dios. ; and the E. dendroides, a plant introduced from the East, which is the Ti0vfjia\o? SevSpcoSrjs of Dioscorides. Sibthorp states, that the word Ti0vfj,a\a) 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 balearica 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 Tlvj-dpi at present, so that it is identified with the Ylv^of 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 Tpdyo? 1 , called also crKopTTLOf and Tpdyavov, 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 Ephedm 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. distachya, which Grisebach doubts, and as corresponding to the "lirirovpLs of Dioscorides \ 1 Lib. iv. c. 51. k Lib. xxvi. c. 20. ' iv. 46. iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 127 ASPARAGUS. Four shrubby species are noticed by Sibthorp, of which the acutifolius, and perhaps apht/llus, are designated by Theophrastus m under the name of da-Trdpayos. It is known in Greece at present under the name of acnraLpdyyicL. 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 aAo?;, but is generally met with cultivated, as the Agave is in Sicily. Pliny 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, R. hypoglossum has been already iden- m vi. 3. " Pliny, xix. 42. Lib. xKvii. 5. p vi. 180. 128 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. tified in page 122, with the Laurus taxa, or Alex- andrina of Pliny, which is the same as of Theophrastus. SMI LAX. 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 oyziAa, 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 were 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 may be referred to the same cause. " iii. 18. ' xvi. 63. 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 Sibthorp 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 oft^, a mani- fest corruption of i^vs, whereas the parasite which grows on the Silver Fir is the true Misletoe, and is termed yue'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 cLKavOos was used as a generic term for several plants of very distinct character, agreeing only in the circumstance of their being spinous 8 ; that the lov XevKov or XtVKoiov was not a violet, but some species of cruciferous plant, and therefore perhaps, as Sibthorp considered it, the Cheiranthus C/ieiri, or as it is now sometimes called, the Dame's Violet * ; that the Ta/ai>#oy was not a Larkspur, but an " " Roman Husbandry," p. 241. ' p. 240. iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 131 hexandrous plant resembling the Lily, and perhaps, as Tenore conjectured, the Gladiolus lyzantinus. The plates also assist us in recognising Dios- corides' (JIKVS dyptos, which was the Momordica elaterium, or Squirting Cucumber, of the south of Europe ; the Currant Grape, as already noticed ; the plant called by Dioscorides 'A/iyuomaKOf, which was perhaps the Ferula orientalis, and certainly an umbelliferous plant ; the (J)vora\\s, which from the drawing would seem to have been the Physalis alkeJcengi, although Sibthorp has chosen to identify the latter with the crrpvyvos dXiKaKaftos 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 KaTTTrapiy, or Caper plant ; of the different species of fJir]KG3v , Poppy; of the aftiavrov, or Maiden's Hair Fern ; of the Ivy, KKTCTOS ; of the larger House- leek, aeitjcoov TO /JLeya ; of the dcifyoov TO /JLiKpois, the Sedum ochroleucum of modern botanists ; of the Aloe vulgaris, aXorj ; of the dpKevQo?, 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 &sculus, 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 Medi- cago arborea 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-platanus . 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, u 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 : " Glandiferas later curabant corpora quercus Plerumque ; efc, quse nunc hiberno tempore cernis, Arbuta puniceo fieri matura colore, Plurima turn tellus, etiam majora ferebat ; Multaque prjeterea novitas turn 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 offspring 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. 937942. 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 Besangon, 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 * 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 LyelPs " 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, Populm tremula, 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. "> This paper is published in extenso in the " Gardener's Chronicle" for October, 1864. 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 dicecous 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 Wettingtonia. 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. Batetnan, 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 Deodaras 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 7 -, 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 1 Callitris, found now in Algeria, has been detected in the Miocene formation of Aix, in Provence. (Count Saporta in the Ann. des So. Nat.) Glyptostrobus, found now in China and Japan, had spread during the tertiary period over Switzerland ; Dracaena 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, whose 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, " Heec 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- deus, who was the friend of Lsecanius 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. Husb. denotes my Lectures on Roman Husbandry, 1857; Th, t Theophrastus; Dios., Dioscorides; PL, Pliny; Virg., Virgil; Ov., Ovid; Sib., Sibthorp ; Dec., Decandolle ; Linn., Linnaeus. Under each genus those species only arc enumerated, which can be identified with some degree of probability with the plants named in Greek or Latin writers. Modern Greece. Modern Italy. Ancient Greek Names. Ancient Latin Names. Page Clematis, 4 species . Berberis 2 sp. . 8 species . 2 sp. . KX7/iaTiris Clematis(PL), Viburnum (Virg.). . Spina appen- 64 cretica . . KvXovTfa(Tn.)? dix . . . 65 Capparis, 2 sp. . . Dianthus 2 sp 1 sp. . . 1 81) Kdmrapis . Capparis . . 6 7, and Rom. Husb., 253 69 Cistus, 21 sp. . 6 8V. Leda . . . 67 creticus . Ad8ai>ov villosus . . Kt'orof appnv salvifolius . KUTTOS df)\vs LIQUID 2 sp . . . Helianthe- rauru, 2 sp. Linum . 69 Hypericum, 6 sp. Hibiscus, 1 sp. 3 sp. . . 1 sp. Ko'pif? or'Y7T- ptKOV f Hypericum ? 69 70 Ruta, 3 sp. ... Coriaria, 1 sp. \ sp. . 1 sp. Hrjydvov Ruta . . . 72 72 Staphylea, 1 sp. . 1 fiO. . Staphyloden- Euonymus, 1 sp. . . 3 sp. . . 3 sp Evatvi/j-ov ? dron Euonymus ? . 72 72 13 aquifolium . . 'Sp.l.Xa^ . Aquifolia 73, and Rom Husb., 270 146 Catalogue of Trees and Shrubs Modern Greece. Modern Italy. Ancient Greek Names. Ancient Latin Names. Page Vitis, 1 sp. ... Rhamnus, 9 sp. . Zizyphus, 2 sp. 3 sp. . . 9 sp. . *Afj.7Tf\os dypia Vitis . . . 70 74 74 77 79 44 44 48 80 82 82, and Rom Husb., 169 82 83 83 8 2, and Rom Husb., 170 84 85 85 86 85 86 Ha\lovpos (Dios.&Th.) 'Papvos Tptcrcros (Dios.) Zyzipha (Ju- jubarurn ar- bor.) Paliurus (Virg.) rus australis) Pistacia, 2 sp. S^tfos . 'YepefiivBos 'Povs, or KOK- Kvypia S^eVSa/iij/os KXij/oTpo^o? Zvyla . $i\vpa . Lentiscus Terebinthus Ehus . . . Acer . Acer gallicum (PI.), Acer (Virg.) (Pavonia(Pl.) (Acer (Ov.) Tilia . . . Rhus, 2 sp. ... Acer, 4 sp. ... 6 sp. . . 10 sp. . . \ sp. . . 1 sp. . . Ulex, 1 sp. . Tilia, 1 sp. ... Cercis, 1 sp. . . . Spartium, 3 sp. viilosum Genista . . Genista . . ' A.vis, Of *Qvu>vis TpayaKavda Astragalus, 3 sp. . . ari status 1 sp. Tragacantha . creticus . Hedysarum, 1 sp. Ebenus, 1 sp. . "Efifvr), or Kv- Lotus, 1 sp. Indigenous in Greece and Italy. Ancient Greek 147 Ancient Latin Modern Greece. Modern Italy Names. Names. Page A.(r(ba\Tiov Minyanthes, Prunus, 6 sp. , 2 sp or Asphaltum 84 2 and 88 spinosa . SrroSia? (Th.), Pmnus KoKKVp.r]\ia (Dios.) \au.aiKf puffos . Chamascera- domestica (sor- busdoraestica, Linn.) 'Ovn (Th.) sus Sorbum Arnygdalus 3 sp. 6 communis 'Afj.vy8d\Tf . . Amygdalus Persica 2 sp. Malus Persica 2 Arrueniaca, Armeniaca 2 Cerasus, 1 sp. . . . Poterium, 1 sp. 1 sp. Cerasus, 5 sp. Kepao-i'a 2roti7 . Cerasus Stobe . 2 89 Rosa, 6 sp. ... Pyrus, 10 sp. . Spiraea, 1 sp. 18 sp. . . 6 sp. . . 'P68ov . . . *0^(Th.) . 'Avpar (Dios.) Rosa . . . Pyrus . Pyrus 88 2 and 90 malus 'AvoiounXa Malus cydonia . Kvdcofta p,r]\n . MalusCydonia Crataegus (mespilus, Sib.), 6 sp. . . . 6 sp. . . 4 and 90 aria .... Torminalis Torminalis i Spina appen- Cornus, 1 sp. . . . mascula ... 2 sp. dix, Spina alba Cornum . . 49 50 Fraxinus, 1 sp. . . excelsior . . 2 sp. BovjueXia (Th.) Fraxinus . . 52 Ornus, 1 sp. . . 9 sp. MeXt'a (Th ) . Ornus 52 Tamarix .... Ribes, 2 sp. 1 sp. . . MvpiKT) Myrice 90 91 Philadelphia, 2 sp. . . 92 Myrtus 1 sp. Myrtus . 93 Punica, 1 sp. . Sempervivum, 1 sp. . 2sp. . . 'Poa 'A.fi(OOV . . Malum puni- cum Aizoum 2 92 Bupleurum, 2 sp. 91 91 Hedera, 1 sp. KtTTos, or Kt(T(7OS . Edera . . . 94 148 Modern Greece. Catalogue of Modern Italy. Trees and Shr Ancient Greek Names. ubs Ancient Lathi Names. Cornus, 1 sp. . Sambucus, 3 sp. . 2 sp. . . 3 sp Kpavla Cornum . . 'AKTT] . XapcuaKTr) . Sambucus Ebulus, or Chamaeacte Viburnum, 2 sp. . Lonicera, 5 sp. . . Tinus . . Tinus (PL) AiyiXos ? Santolina a , 1 sp. . maritima 1 sp. Tva(pd\iov HoXiov ? Gnaphalium chamaszilon . Polium chamaecypa- rissus . Candida 'ApKTIOV (Dios. ?) Artemisia, 1 sp. . . 2 sp. . . abrotanum } santonica j 'Apre/jLLcria . ' AtylvOiov . j 'Hpiyfpov . Artemisia pontica (PL)? santonica (PL) Senecio Senecio, 1 sp. . Gnaphalium, 2 sp. 1 813. E\ixpvcroi', or Xpvcrdvffefiov Helicrysum Staehelina, 2 sp. . . Pteronia, 1 sp. Xapanrfvurj (Dios.) Centaurea, 1 sp. . Cineraria, 1 sp. . . Erica, 6 sp. ... arborea 1 SJ). 6 sp. . . 'EpeiKTj MvpiKrj Erice . . . Myrica Arbutus, 2 sp. . . unedo Calluna, 1 sp. Arctostaphy- lus, 1 sp. 3 sp. K.6fj.apos Arbutus, or unedo Andrachne Andrachne . Rhododendron Vaccinium, 1 sp. . Rhododen- dron, 2 sp. *A/J.TT(\OS TTJS * N.B. In p. 98, for " Several species of this evergreen uuder-shrub," read of this genus, but all herbaceous." 50 95 119 96 97 97 98 98 98 99 100 101 101 101 102 103 50 104 105, &Rom. Husb., 239 " Five species Indigenous in Greece and Italy. 149 Ancient Greek Names. Ancient Latin Names. Page Olea . . . TJ TT 165 i flfi 1 Ofi Jrjplov Rhododaphne 104 1 OQ /ju\a Xfia \.idocnrepp.ov ? . Convolvulus ? Lithosper- mum? . . 106 107 1 O7 .rpvxyos Strychnon 109 Pap.vos (Sib.) ^Xd/Lios . Verbascum . 112 1 no loXiW Polium 3v/ij3pa Thymbra Tot'^as . Opiyavov , \iKTa/j,vos . 5v/.wv . 'vyis (Dios.) . Stoechas . Origanum Dictamnus . Thymus . . 108 115 lie ^payopiyavov sTa^vs ? ^XofjLOS aypia . Stachys? . . Phlomis . 116 113 1 1 fi 1 1 K EXe\t'(70aKoi' . \.ifiavu>Tis . Salvia Libanotis, or E-osmarinus 113 110 I 1 Q I 1 Q Ayyoy,or Avyos iXipos (Dios.) Lv(a>pos Ci/etopos 6 Xeu- KOS . . . 3vfj.f\aia (Dios.) ia/natXea . Agnus castus Alimon (PI.) Daphnoides . Casia herba (Virg.) Chamaelea 117 118 119 150 Catalogue of Trees and Shrubs Ancient Greek Ancient Latin Modern Greece. Modern Italy. Names. Names. Page Passerina, 1 sp. Kve u>pov /zeXav 121 119 123 123 124 124 125 2 2 6 53 54 55 60 6 Laurus, 1 sp. . . Osyris, 1 sp. . . . Elaeagnus, 1 sp. . . Aristolochia, 1 sp. Euphorbia, 3 sp. . . Laurus . . Osyris 1 sp. . . 1 sp. . . Hippophae 1 sp. 1 sp. . 1 sp. . . 1 sp. . 2sp. . . 2 sp. "Oavpts EXfilGt (ILUloTTlKn ? (Sibth.) Ttdu/uuXXos (Th.) Tidv/j.d\os (Dios.) ofv&p)&T]s TLv6s ... Aristolochia . Euphorbia,Ti- thymalus . Euphorbia dendroides Buxus . . Buxus, 1 sp. . . . Ficus, 1 sp. ... carica (Th'TT (Dios.) 2u/ca^i'i/of(Th.) Kdpvov Bacrt- IlTeXea Ficus . Ficus Egyptia Morus Nux Juglans TJlmus Morus Sycamorus b 3 sp. nigra . . 2 sp. Juglans, 1 sp. . . . regia .... TJlrnus, 2 sp. . . . Celtis, 1 sp. Alnus, 1 sp. . , Carpinus, 2 sp. . . betulus . . . 1 sp. . . 1 sp. . 1 sp. . 3 sp. . . KXrjdpos Alnus . Carpinus Ostrya ostrya (Sib.) . (Ostrya vulgaris, Dec.) Corylus, 2 sp. . . avellana "Oo-rpvs 3 sp. . Kapva f)P a - Kdpvov TTOVTI- Nux abellina, or pontica In my first Lecture, p. 2, I have given for the Sycamore Fig the Latin synonyme of Sycamorus; and for the Mulberry that of Morus, omitting the corresponding Greek synonymes, viz. Zvxantvos Alyvwria for the former, and 2w*a/ii'ws alone for the latter. That J heophrastus employed the terms in this sense was pointed out by Bodseus in his notes on leophrastus, and is confirmed by Fraas (Synopsis Plant. Fl. Cl.) from various considerations. condes uses the term popla. and tru/co^ea for the Black Mulberry, and that of 3Mqtf*M (* AfyvrrA), or simply rb 2uT) . , Kavravov . 1 sp. Fagus . . Castanus . . Fagus, 1 sp. . . . sylvatica . . Castariea, 1 sp. vesca 1 sp. Quercus, 9 sp. . . 10 so. Ilpivos 'H/jteptf 'A\i(f>\oios . . Robur Esculus Ilex Suber Latifolia Hemeris Haliphlo3os Ilex (PI.) BetuUa . . Platanus . . Taxus . . Ephedra . . ilex . . . cerris or Tour- nefortii .... toza (dwarf va- riety of cerris) . - pseudo-suber JEffiloDS . . coccifera Upivos . Platanus, 1 sp. Betula, 1 sp. n\dravos Taxus, 1 sp. . . Ephedra, 1 sp. . . Pinus, 4 sp. ... 1 sp. . . Tpdyos (Dios.) TlfVKTJ . . . IlfvKT] TrapoAtW Pinaster Tibulus Tseda Picea Pinus Strobus? Abies . . gallica . Larix Cedrus . . Citrus maritima Pinaster . laricio, or syl- vestris .... TIfVKr) 'l8aia pinea . . Cembra . 'EXdrrj . Abies pectinata . . (Pinus picea, Sib.) Juniperus, 6 sp. . excelsa . Larix CedrusLibani Thuya arti- Ke'Spos . communis . oxycedrus , 4 sp. . \\pKfvdos n'ncpa Kedoos uiKoa Lately added to the list by Grisebach, see p. 32. 153 Catalogue of Trees and Shrubs. Modern Greece. Modern Italy. Ancient Greek Names. Ancient Latin Names. Page Juniperus phcenicia . "Rpadvs erfpov TlpdOvs Ktdpos ? . . Cedrus ? Cupressus, 1 sp. . . BcmpcrvircnB 2 sp. KvTrctpiTror (Th.) . . Cypressus 42 127 Atrirdpayos Corruda *A\6r) . . . Aloe . 127 Ruscus 3 sp S sp. 122 - hvDOglossum '^fir6y\a>hvllum (Dios.) . . Adipvr] a\tav- dptia (Dios.) \uuai8d(bi>n . Eadix Idsea (PL) Laurus Alex- andrina (PI.) Smilax, 1 sp. . . 2sp. . . 2/iiXa^ Smilax JJrintri bj> . |)arher, Cornmarhtt, xforb. % A DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVE 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. TATLOK and FEANCIS, London, 1848. 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 OXFOBD UNIVEBSITY PRESS. 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. PABKEB. 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. PABKEB. 8vo. 4s. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. ' , I AN DE UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY 'FACILITY A 000047198 7