ON THE TAMARISK, OR TAMAKIX. 285 



the high encomiums which these ^sculapian writers bestowed on the 

 Tamarisk induced Grindall, Archbishop of Canterbury, to introduce 

 it into this country, as a specific in disorders of the spleen. Camden, 

 in his Life of Elizabeth, notices that the Tamarisk was first brought 

 into England by Archbishop Grindall ; and in the Remembrances for 

 Master S., by Richard Hakluyt, 1582, we are told, likewise, that 

 " when this archbishop returned out of Germany he brought into 

 this realm the plant of Tamariske from thence, and this plant he 

 hath so increased that there be here thousands of them, and many 

 people have received great health by this plant." 



Dr. Turner writes fully on this plant, in his Herbal that w : as pub- 

 lished in 1568, when it appears to have been unknown in this 

 country ; for he observes, " It may be named, in English, Tamarisk, 

 because, as we want the bushe, so also we have no name for it in 

 England." This author tells us, that he '' saw it in diuerse landes 

 in Italy, in an yland betwene Francolino and Wenish, in Germany, 

 in diuerse places about the Ren, not far from Strasburg; and in 

 Rhetia, in a stony place, som tyme of yeare used to be cuerfloweu 

 with the Rhene." 



Gerard notices that it grows in Germany, Spain, Italy, and in 

 Greece, and he tells us that both species of this plant grew in his 

 garden in 1596. 



Later botanists mention it as a native plant, because Mr. Giddy 

 and W. G. Mason, Esq., found it growing on St. Michael's Mount, 

 Cornwall, in the year 1794, as also near Hurst Castle, Hants; and 

 Dr. Goodenough saw it near Hastings in Sussex, but this is by no 

 means satisfactorily proving it to be indigenous to our soil, as in all 

 probability it sprang from cultivation in the two latter places, and 

 from some accidental circumstance on the former spot, fur it is of so 

 easy propagation that the least sprig of it will often take root when 

 thrown on the earth, and its not maturing its seed in this country is 

 a sufficient proof of its foreign origin. 



The Tamarisk has been frequently celebrated in the verses of the 

 ancient poets. Homer mentions it as the tree against which Achilles 

 laid his spear before he plunged into the Xanthus, to pursue the 

 routed Trojans. It is introduced in the Pastorals of Theocritus, and 

 Virgil has noticed it several times in his Eclogues. Its name may 

 also be found in several passages of the poems of Ovid. 



