DIVI BOTANICr 187 



credit to one speciall herb, called after him Teucrion, which some 

 nominal Hemionium. This plant putteth forth little stalks in ma- 

 ner of rushes or bents, and spreadeth low : the leaues be small : it 

 loueth to grow in rough and vntoiled places : a hard and vnpleesant 

 sauor it hath in tast : it neuer floureth, and seed it hath none. 

 Soueraigne it is for the swolne and hard spleene : the knowledge of 

 which property came by this occasion, as it is credibly and con- 

 stantly reported. It fortuned on a time, when the inwards of a 

 beast killed for sacrifice were cast vpon the ground where this herb 

 grew, it took hold of the spleen or milt, and claue fast vnto it, so as 

 in the end it was seen to haue consumed and wasted it cleane : here- 

 vpon some there be that call it Splenion,* or spleen. wort : and 

 there goeth a common speech of it, that if swine doe eat the root of 

 this herbe they shall be found without a milt when they are opened. 

 Some there be who take for Teucrium, and by that name do call, 

 another herb full of branches in maner of hyssop, leafed like vnto 

 beans ; and they giue order that it should be gathered whiles it is 

 in floure, as if they made no doubt but that it would floure." 



Teucrium is neither mentioned nor described by Theophrastus, 

 who was the friend of Aristotle, succeeded Socrates in teaching phi- 

 losophy, and composed his History of Plants almost nine hundred 

 years after Teucer had retired to the peaceful government of his 

 Cyprian territory. In his days, therefore, this herb apparently had 

 not yet become known to botanists by the name that honours its dis- 

 coverer. Dioscorides flourished more than nine centuries after 

 Theophrastus, and his Books on the Materia Medica bear a date an- 



* This is retained as a generic term in the nomenclature of modern bota- 

 ny, with a slight but improving variation. It is the Asplenium or miltwaste, 

 80 designated with allusion to its reputed properties. Vitruvius describes 

 the origin of the name in these terms; and, though founded on a i'able, his 

 deduction is instructive. " That we are beholden to the soil,'' he says, " for 

 the wholesoincness of provisions both for man and beast, is demonstrable 

 from the lands of the Cretans, which lie along the river Pothereus : sheep and 

 black cattle graze on the right and left of this stream ; but those which feed 

 on the one side are not without a spleen, while those that pasture on the 

 other side liave no appearance of any. Hence physicians were led to investi- 

 gate into the cause of this phenomenon; and they discovered an herb which 

 the cattle had eaten, and which, by its virtue, had wasted away their spleen. 

 They gathered this herb, and used it to very good purpose in disorders of 

 the sjileen. For this reason the Cretans called it Asplenion. Now," he con- 

 cludes, "this example shews us that the natural salubrity or insalubrity of a 

 place may be ascertained from the vegetables and water it aflbrds." — De Ar- 

 chilccturu, lib. i, cap. 4 ; folio, Amstelodami, 1 049. 



VOL. VII., NO. XXII. BB 



