162 NAT. ORDER. OLEINE^. 



first knowledg-e we have of this curious plant is from Baron Jacquin, 

 who exhibited dried specimens of it from Sicbenburgen, and since its 

 discovery was due to "Frau Baronin von Josika, gebohren Grafin 

 Czaki." He named it in compliment to that distinguished lady, and 

 gave it a specific character. In another part of the same work, we 

 find that not only is die present species a native of Germany, but that 

 the common Lilac, Si/ringn im/garis, which has hitherto been con- 

 sidered almost exclusively of Persian origin, as staled by Dr. IIeuffel, 

 to adorn with its copious blossoms the inaccessible chalky precipices 

 of the Cverna Valley, and Mount Domaglett in Hungary. 



Syringa is from the Greek work syrinx, a pipe. The branches 

 are long and straight, and are filled with medulla ; hence the old name 

 of the Hlac, pipe-tree. Linnaeus places it among poetical names. The 

 story of the nymph Syrinx, in Ovid, is well known. The English 

 name of the genus is from lilac or lilag, the Persian word for flower. 



Si/ringa vulgaris. Common Lilac. This is a very common shrub 

 which grows to the height of eighteen or twenty feet in good ground, 

 and divides into many branches ; those of the white sort grow more 

 erect than the blue ; and the purple or Scotch Lilac has its branches 

 yet more difllised ; the branches of the white covered with a smooth 

 bark of a gray color ; in the other two it is darker ; the leaves of the 

 white are of a brighter green — they are heart-shaped in all, nearly five 

 inches long, and three and a half broad near the base, placed oppo.site, 

 on foot-stalks about an inch and a half in length ; the buds of the fu- 

 ture shoots, which are very turgid before the leaves fall, are of a very 

 bright green in the white sort, but those of the other two are dark 

 g-reen ; the flowers are always produced at the ends of the shoots of 

 the former year, and below the flowers, other shoots come out to suc- 

 ceed them — as that part ui)on which the flowers stand decays down 

 to the shoots below every winter. There are generally two bunches or 

 panicles of flowers joined at the end of each shoot; djose of the blue are 

 the smallest — flowers ai-e also smaller, and placed Uiinner than either of 

 the others ; the bunches on the white are larger, but those of the 



