152 HISTORICAL NOTES ON 



by many ancient writers, and was certainly cultivated in Southern 

 Ital}' and Sicily as far back as the time of Pliny. It was also 

 extensively and profitably grown in Tuscany in the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth centuries, when it was made the subject of many 

 fiscal and protective regulations, but it is now entirely neglected 

 as being imported at much less cost and of better quality from 

 Southern Italy, Spain, Barbary and Greece, and even from 

 Orange in France. Besides its consumption by dyers it is much 

 used for colouring Parmesan cheese and several kinds of Italian 

 paste for soups. 



Yellow Woad, Weld, or Dijer's-nred (Reseda luteola) is another 

 tinctorial plant indigenous to Europe. The ancient Romans 

 made use of the wild plant only, but in more modern times it has 

 been made to produce a much finer dye by cultivation, which 

 appears in Tuscany to have commenced in the flourishing days of 

 the wool-trade. In the sixteenth century it was very general, 

 and, like saffron, the subject of numerous fiscal and protective 

 ordinances. It still continues to form an article in the agricul- 

 tural produce of the Cortona district, 



Datisca cannahina, an oriental plant, first discovered in Crete 

 in 1594, has, in our own days, and especially by Braconnot iu 

 1810, been shown to produce a very fine and permanent yellow 

 dye, and to be well adapted for growth in the climate of Tuscany. 

 Prof. Targioni refers on this occasion to several other papers in 

 which he has strongly recommended its extended cultivation, 

 especially in the Maremma, but it does not appear how far his 

 recommendations have been practically adopted. 



The cultivation of the Poppy (Papaver somniferum) dates from 

 the most remote ages. It varies considerably in the colour and 

 size of the flower, in the form of the capsule, in the colour of the 

 seeds, etc. ; but all these varieties constitute a single species, 

 which is found abundantly in a wild state in South-eastern 

 Europe, and in the Levant. In many cases it may indeed have 

 escaped from cultivation, but there is every reason to believe that, 

 iu a great part of the East Mediterranean region, it is a truly 

 indigenous plant. That the ancient inhabitants of Italy were 

 aware of its narcotic properties is proved by the frequent allusions 

 in the verses of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and other Roman poets ; 

 we learn from Pliny that poppies were cultivated and held in 

 high estimation in his time, and Livy's story of the answer given 

 by Tarquinius Superbus to his son's envoy, by cutting off the 

 heads of the poppies of his garden, would carry us back to a much 



