20 
Some Mythical Plants of Greek and Latin Literature. 
By F. SoweE ts, M.A. 
(Read March 6th, 1906.) 
The lecturer introduced his subject by explaining that he 
intended to treat of some other plants besides mythical ones, 
and pointed out how plants and flowers, while appealing 
zsthetically to Greek and Roman poets, and also constantly 
symbolizing to them life out of death, were often considered 
to have magical and uncanny properties. 
The plant that first suggests itself to our thoughts in con- 
nection with Homer is the magic herb ‘‘ Moly ’’—the root that 
Hermes gave to Odysseus to secure him against the witch- 
craft of Circe. 
“So spake the slayer of Argus, and gave me the herb, which he 
pulled from the earth, and showed me all its power. Black was 
it at the root, but the blossom was like unto milk in whiteness. 
Moly the gods call it; but it is hard for mortal men to dig; but 
with the gods all things are possible.”’ 
Moly is a strange word, and scarcely Greek. Perhaps, as 
Dr. Merry suggests, the fact that the Gods called it by one 
name, and mortals by another implies that the word Moly 
was foreign. In any case to Homer it was a magic herb. 
Theophrastus, our next authority, perhaps five centuries 
later, says that Moly is to be found near Pheneus, and on Mount 
Cyllene, in Arcadia. They tell us, he says, that it is like the 
Moly that Homer describes, with a round root like an onion, 
and a leaf like a squill, and that they use it as an antidote 
and for magic, but that it is zof at all hard to dig up, as Homer 
says. 
Dioscorides says: ‘‘ Moly has grass-like leaves, spreading 
on the ground: the flower is white, like a pale pansy, but 
smaller, corresponding in size to a purple pansy, but of milky 
whiteness ; the stalk is white, fowr cubits long, and at the top 
of the stalk something like a garlic head. The root is small 
and bulbous.” 
Pliny translates Theophrastus, but adds: “I know a herb 
doctor, who said that it grew in Italy too, and that I should 
have in a few days one brought from Campania, which had 
been dug up in some difficult and stony ground, with rocts 
30 feet long, and even so, not entire, but broken off short.” 
In another place he adds: ‘‘ Against such poisons, and 
indeed all magic arts, Moly is the sovereign remedy.” 
