THE TREES, SIIKUBS, AND PLAXT8 OF VIRGIL 2o5 



which may account for Mr. Sargeaunt's not liavuig been ahle to find 

 any common Italian name for it. Even beyond the Adriatic it is not 

 abundant. In Lemaire's edition of Pliny, vol. v. (1829), there is an 

 excfii'SKs of ten ])ages by Desfontaines on the question, deciding, 

 though inconclusively, for 3Iedica(jo ; but probably the safest opinion 

 is that of Bertoloni — '* de quo Cytiso loquatur (Virgilius) dictu 

 difficile, nee concordant interpretes. Sive vero pertineat ad Cytisos 

 nostros, sive ad Coronillas, Medicagines aut Lotos clare patet agi de 

 planta in pascuis obvia " — which Medicago arhorea is not. 



Hyacinthus, whether in this Latin form or as the Greek vai<ivdos, 

 has always been a puzzle. The original meaning seems to have been 

 one or more kinds of Scilla ; then the worship of Dionysus trans- 

 ferred the name to the plant of Theocritus, the petals of which boi'e 

 the marks AI AI. We cannot abandon the old identification of this 

 with the Larkspur, Delphiniitm Ajacis (accepted by Sir W. Thisselton 

 l)3^er in his contribution on " Flora " to the Cambridge Campanion 

 to Greek Studies) in favour of Mr. Sargeaunt's not very happy 

 suggestion of Gladiolus segetum. Yirgil's use of Hyacinthus seems 

 to be merely literary, not botanical. 



Whilst in many cases there is no doubt about the genus to which 

 Virgil's plants belong, we must protest against our author's habit of 

 selecting a particular species without special evidence in its favour, 

 when others of the same genus are equali}^ wide-s2)read in Italy. 

 Take for instance Caltlia, Carduus, and Carex. Why must Caltlia 

 be the garden marigold from Africa only, when the fields in south 

 Italy are golden with wild marigolds, which in Sicily are of several 

 species? Carduus must be taken to mean anv connnon thistle such 

 as an Italian peasant would call cardone, whether a true Carduus or 

 not. The farmer's worst enemy is not, as in England, Circium 

 arvense — C. lanceolatum, Galactites tomenfosa, Scolymus hisjjaniciiSy 

 Cynara horrida and several spiny Centaureas are among the most 

 troublesome — nor should Carex be restricted to Carex acuta. 



The oak is very inadequately dealt with. The statement that 

 modern botanists refuse specific rank to the two forms of English oak 

 represents an opinion that is quite out of date. The remark about 

 Pliny's Bohur on p. 109 is extremely misleading. Pliny's oaks are 

 six in number ; " glandem ferunt robur, quercus, esculus, cerrus, ilex, 

 suber," to which he adds cegiloj^s later on. He does not identify 

 cerrus, the Turkey oak, with rohur, as Mr. Sargeaunt says. One of 

 the finest Italian oaks bears the name of Qyercus Virgil iana : it has 

 edible acorns, and is known to woodmen as quercia castagnara. 



Olea, too, is not very satisfactory. The olive flowers in June — 

 in Calabria and Sicily as early as the end of April, not in August ; 

 but the olive is too large a subject to enter on here. LTnder Taxus 

 Ave might have been reminded how Ciesar tells us that Cativolcus, 

 king of the Eburones, poisoned himself with yew, *' cujus magna 

 in Gallia Germaniaque copia est." It will be noticed that when 

 speaking of Aconituui the author forgets that A. Lycoctonum, or its 

 variety neapolitanum, is plentiful in the higher parts of the Apennines, 

 especially towards the south. Perhaps it is just because this species 

 as well as Aniliora and the blue kinds are confined to the mountains 

 that Virgil could speak as if there were no aconite in Italy. Then it 



