526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to find in his work many of the fables of the ancients. These fables, 

 indeed, endured long after his age, and even as late as the beginning 

 of the seventeenth century editions of Egenolj)h's formei'ly very popu- 

 lar book of plants appeared, containing the time-honored stories of the 

 basilisk, griffin, dragon, phoenix, etc., almost in the words of the origi- 

 nals, with each animal represented in a neat woodcut. The botanical 

 part of the work of Rabanus particularly claims our attention. We 

 have examined this, not in the entire work, but in a later compendium 

 of the scientific parts made by Stephen Fellner, at Fulda, who in his 

 review described two hundred and sixteen plants as having been men- 

 tioned by Rabanus. I have compared these descriptions with the 

 table of plants described by Isidore of Seville, as given in Meyer's 

 " History of Botany," and have found that the latter has fifty plants 

 more than Rabanus, of which a few, however, are synonyms, and 

 should not be counted to his credit. On the other hand, Rabanus has 

 a few plants that I have not found in Isidore, such as lychnis, lichen, 

 corchorus, fcenum, linum, byssus, farrago. The lichen is, as Fellner 

 declares, Marchantia polymorpha. Fcenum is, according to Fellner, 

 Fcenum grcecum. Fellner identifies byssus with Gossypium herbace- 

 tim, but translates it in another place by wool, while the text says of 

 the plant : " Byssus is a kind of flax. It is very soft and white ; it 

 arises out of the earth, is deprived of its moisture by several protract- 

 ed processes, and is formed into a handsome cloth." Does not this all 

 agree with asbestus ? The account continues, however, " Purple is 

 made of it a cloth for kings by dyeing it with the blood of a cer- 

 tain sea-shell animal " ; and the ancient name for cotton cloth was 

 generally byssus. Asbestus appears again among the minerals as ami- 

 anthus ; but its application to the manufacture of cloths is not men- 

 tioned, except with reference to its incombustible quality, where it is 

 said, " Cloth which is in contact with it resists the fire." Fellner de- 

 fines farrago as a mixture of various forage-grasses. Some of the plants 

 have not been correctly identified by Fellner. Rabanus in the begin- 

 ning speaks of the distinction between a tree and a herb, which he 

 regards as consisting only in a difference in age, for a tree, he says, 

 can be developed out of a carefully cultivated herb. In the next chap- 

 ter he treats of the improvement of trees, of grafting, and budding. 

 The third chapter considers the parts of the tree : the root, which is 

 supposed to reach as deep into the ground as the stem rises above it ; 

 the stem, crown, flowers, and fruits, which last he distinguishes as 

 hard-skinned or nut-like, and soft-skinned, like the apple. The fourth 

 chapter relates to the vine. This is the only plant of which a measur- 

 ably comprehensive description is given, and I will therefore quote 

 from the account, omitting the explanations of the names : " The vine 

 consists of the stock and its shoots. The ends of the branches, the 

 younger shoots, are driven back and forth by the wind. The branches 

 have curled tendrils, by means of which they can cling to the trees, 



