894 



count for the great deflexion of its line of distribution in a south- 

 easterly course, by supposing the root unable to resist the winters of 

 eastern Europe above a certain parallel, whilst its sudden and total 

 suppression westward in Scotland and Ireland may be owing to its 

 not finding there the requisite degree of summer heat for its sponta- 

 neous maintenance. The common Butcher's-broom (Ruscus aculea- 

 tus) has a very similar distribution with Tamus, and like it, is not a 

 species of even central Europe, excepting towards the west of our 

 continent, where the winters are not too rigorous for it. Like Tamus, 

 it fails totally or is doubtfully wild in Ireland, but advances a little 

 beyond the former towards the north-west, being found in several 

 parts of Scotland. 



After all, should not Tamus communis have the * or at least the t 

 appended to it ? I wonder its claim has never before been called in 

 question ! We have just seen that it is quite a southern plant, un- 

 known over the greater part of Europe under British parallels ; of 

 eminently exotic aspect and relationship, and has no one well ascer- 

 tained British or Saxon name, for that of Our Lady's Seal must have 

 been given it in catholic times, and as before remarked, seems never 

 to have been its popular one with us ; indeed Parkinson expressly 

 tells it was only called so abroad by the apothecaries of France, Italy 

 and Germany.* As to the name of Bryony, which it shares with the 

 true plant so denominated, that word is altogether Greek, and there- 

 fore quite sufficient to implicate both species in the suspicion of fo- 

 reign descent. Moreover, both Tamus and Bryonia are known solely 

 as " wild vines " to a great proportion of our rustic population ; a 

 phrase very redolent this of the sunny south from whence it must 

 have come with the plants themselves ; nay, further, the Tamus is 

 sometimes called here Black Vine, in contradistinction to the Bryonia, 

 which is occasionally termed White Vine, from its paler colour. 

 Here we actually have the genuine classical names of antiquity for 

 the Tamus, the vitis nigra and a^srexoj /xexatva. of the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans, done into English for the benefit of country bumpkins ; what 

 more can be needed to prove both the plants foreigners ? No, de- 

 pend upon it that Tamus, like the Arbutus, the Hop, the Cherry, the 

 Lime and the Beech, is a convicted alien ; who knows but it might 

 have been introduced by the monks in the train of the pious mission- 

 ary St. Augustine, to rub their chilblains with, a complaint to which 



*Theatmm Bot. pp. 180, 181. 



