Queries a}id Jhiswers. 401 



tions. Though this pretty brilliant plant is usually looked on as a native, . 

 it is said the seeds were originally brought in some marble sculptures from 

 Italy to Oxford. I can bear cordial testimony to its fringing and mantling, 

 with its elegant drapery, the walls of colleges and gardens in that splendid 

 university. And every one knows how likely the plant is to be desired and 

 removed, and when sown, how readily spreading, and impossible of eradi- 

 cation. It may inform some of your readers (and I am one who highly 

 approve your giving derivations, though I could wish the Greek appeared 

 in its own type, from the impossibility of otherwise expressing their variety 

 of vowels), 1 say, it may amuse your readers to know that Antirrhinum 

 (snapdragon), is compounded of a Greek preposition and noun, signifying 

 lip to lip. Cymbalaris is an ancient epithet for a plant, and is (I presume, — 

 for I could show another, denoting the gadding nature of the plant, only 

 " Priscian would be a little scratched") derived from the Greek for a small 

 boat. In this poikilonomizing (various-naming) age (or rage), some bota- 

 nists retain Linaria as a genus, distinguishing it by the greater length of its 

 spurs. A verse in Juvenal's Satires (iv. 45.) has both the words together, 

 the boat and the Jlax ; " cymhcB Unique magister ; " speaking of a fisherman 

 and his apparatus. — John F. M. JDovaston. Westfelton, near Shrewsbury j 

 July 21. 1829. 



Erratum. — Page 259. lines 13 to 16./or" Mr. William Phillips, one," &c. 

 7'ead " Mr. William Phillips, one of the authors of Geological Outlines of 

 England and Wales, and author of an Elementary Introduction to Minei^alogy 

 and of various other works, and Dr. Wollaston who has left lOOO/. to the 

 Society," &c. 



Art. XI. Queries and Answers, 



Flo'RA. VirgiUhna, and other Matters. — Can you not give us a complete 

 Flora Virgiliana (Vol. I. p. 484.), by the aid of Martyn's Georgics, and other 

 works ? I should like to see all the weeds included,) and verified with their 

 Linnean names, when I shall recur with a new pleasure to my old 

 acquaintance : — 



" Lappaeque tribulique ; interque nitentia culta 

 Infelix lolium et steriles dominantur avenae. 



et amaris intuba fibris." {Georg.\.\55. ^20.) 



In the mean time,'until difficulties be cleared away, let us rejoice in the 



" biferique rosaria Paesti : 



Et virides apio ripae, tortusque per herbam 



cucumis ; nee sera comantem 



Narcissum, aut flexi . . . vimen acanthi, 



Pallentesque hederas, et amantes littora myrtos." (Georg. iv. 119.) 



I should delight to know more about even " graveolentia centaurea," but 

 especially as to the 



" flos in pratis, cui nomen aynello 



Fec^re agricolae," {Georg. iv. 270.) 



which puzzles me dreadfully, as I contemplate every species of the genus 

 A'ster in a nursery garden which I frequent. As to Dictamnus (jE?wid. 

 xii. 412.), I am sufficiently contented when I pore over a plant of " Orfga- 

 num JDictamnus" in flower, and let it be described as 



" Dictamnum genitrix Cretaea carpit ab Ida, 



Puberibus caulem foliis et flore comantem 



Purpureo : '* ^ 



