534i TKE NATURAL UISTOET EEYIEW, 



XLYI. — The Trees and Shrubs of the Ancients. 



Essay on the Trees and Shrubs op thk Ancients, being the 

 Substance of four Lectures deliyered before the Uni- 

 versity OF Oxford, inteuded to be supplementary to those on 

 Eoman Husbandry, already published by C. Daubeny, M.D. 

 E.E.S., Professor of Botany and Eural Economy in the 

 University of Oxford. Oxford and London. 1865. 8vo. 



This is a most valuable contribution to botanical Archeology, not 

 so much perhaps from any number of new facts which it establishes, 

 as from the bringing together in a concise methodical form, all that 

 is knowTi on the subject, and by the sifting the evidences upon which 

 we have formed our conclusions, thus showing how meagre these 

 evidences are, and how very few of the ancient Grreek and Eoman 

 names of trees and shrubs have been, or can be identified with the 

 species they represent. Linnaeus, and other botanists of the last and 

 previous centuries, followed by the majority of lexicographers, had 

 unhesitatingly applied the ancient names to particular species, upon 

 grounds which rarely exceeded vague conjecture, and these identifi- 

 cations, like the common ones of Biblical floras, had been the more 

 generally accepted by writers of Central and Northern Europe, in 

 consequence of the very little knowledge we had of the actual vege- 

 tation of the countries where the ancient authors lived and wrote. 

 When, however, the pacification of Europe in tlie early part of the 

 present century, had opened the classical soil of the Mediterranean 

 regions to the exploration of naturalists, the glaring misajDplications 

 of ancient names, did not fail to come to light, and several elaborate 

 works, both G-erman and Erench enumerated by Dr. Daubeny, be-, 

 sides some Italian ones, were devoted to the correction of these 

 errors^ and to the inquiry as to what were really the plants knoA\Ti 

 to, and named by the ancients. At an earlier period also, the late 

 Dr. Sibthorp had laid up a rich store of information on the subject, 

 the more valuable as much of it had been collected on the spot, 

 during his celebrated travels in Greece. Of all these materials Dr. 

 Daubeny has made very good use, and he has also availed himself of 

 the old commentaries on Theophrastus and Dioscorides, and of some 

 curious illustrations appended to old MSS. in the Vienna library. 

 Applying to the whole his own critical acumen and knowledge, both 

 of classical literature and natural science, he has produced a compi- 



