116 THE CLASSICAL PLANTS OF SICILY. 
of Sicily. The altitude of Mount Etna to its extreme 
summit, from the Ionian sea is 10,874 feet, according to 
Captain Smyth. 
44, Poterium spinosum.— Prickly Burnet. 
xro94, Diosc. lib. iv. cap. 12.?— «6; which some call ero, 
Theoph. lib. vi. cap. 1,—now bears its old name in Greece 
eros, and in Crete cro/$506— Sibth.— Stackhouse supposes the 
plant of Theophrastus to correspond with Centaurea Stebe. 
Plentiful on the sand links between Catania and Augusta. 
45. Rosa Gallica.— Red officinal Rose. 
The Rose, 'Pó»o, was anciently used for making garlands— 
boürmus orepavougs— S tesichori fragm. iv.2. and for bedecking graves 
and tombs;—whence Anacreon,— 700] xai vexgorg &wuvor,—* This 
is the amulet, hereby no ills their tombs molest.— Pliny, 
mentioning (lib, xxi. cap. 3.) wreaths or chaplets of flowers, 
says of them,—** Coronz, Deorum honos erant et Larium 
publicorum privatorumque, ac sepulchrorum et Manium.” 
Not only the Selinum, the Myrtle, and the Rose, but all 
sorts of flowers decorated the ancient Greek tombs, as ap- 
pears from Sophocles, Electra, v. 895,— 
Ü c 
FELOTEDH XUXA qu 
mavray 00 sol Avütum bjx rarods. 
In the south of Europe, the custom of adorning with 
wreaths the tombs of deceased friends is still retained, and of 
planting flowers on their graves, and keeping them alive 
by frequently scattering water over them. A pleasing and 
melancholy remembrance of the dead is thus on every visit 
to the cemetery renewed and cherished.— The following lines 
from Prudentius are so elegant, that I have here inserted 
them :— 
Nos tecta fovebimus ossa 
Violis et fronde frequente, 
Titulumque et frigida saxa 
Liquido spargemus odore. 
