I860.] CHAPTERS ON BRITISH BOTANY. 209 



Centaurea Cyanus [fjbrjKwv 'UpaKXeca), the Cornflower or 

 Bluebottle, still found in Greece. See Sibthorp. This orna- 

 mental plant is distributed all over Europe, except the extreme 

 north. (Bil. 222; Spr. 102; Theo. 9, 13.) 



Modern botanists would hesitate before joining the Poppy and 

 Bluebottle together in one genus or even order. The ancients 

 combined plants on slenderer grounds than those on which they 

 united the Poppies and the Cornflower, Papaver and Centaurea, 

 viz. that both Poppies and Cornflowers (Bluebottles) grow in 

 cultivated fields and on rubbish or waste places, and they are 

 both in flower at the same time. Fabius Col., in his ' Phytoba- 

 sanoSj' pp. 74-79 (Milan, 1744), has a long dissertation on this 

 plant and its relations to the Poppy. In his article, " Papaver 

 Heracleum Theophrasti,^^ this learned botanist proves to his own 

 satisfaction, if not to that of his readers, that there were ample 

 reasons for this odd classification. His commentator, who lived 

 a century later, disapproves of what he calls " servile subjection 

 to the wisdom of the ancients." 



Cerasus. Theophrastus describes this tree and fruit in his 

 3rd book and 13th chapter. He says that the wood is hard, the 

 bark valuable, like that of the Lime {Tilia), and that there was 

 a peculiar method of stripping oflT the outer bark so as to leave 

 the inner liber (fibrous part) entire. He says the flowers are 

 white and umbellate, like the flowers of the pear ; also, that the 

 fruit is red, etc. (Stack. 35 ; Spr. 92; Theo. xi. 7, 13.) 



Cham^drys. This is a term very extensively employed both 

 in ancient and modern botany. It had reference, partly to the 

 habit of the plant (reclining), and partly to the shape of its 

 leaves (like the Oak-leaf) . It is now the specific name of two 

 British species, Veronica Chamcedrys and Teucrium Chamcedrys, 

 plants which grow in the south of Europe. It is never pretended 

 that these are the species to which these names were origi- 

 nally given. Chamcepitys, Chamomile {')(^afj,ac/jbr]\ov) , Chameleon, 

 etc., are all derived from the same radical term, %ayLtaf (on the 

 ground) . 



Chelidontum. The Greater Celandine, C. majus, is a gene- 

 rally distributed plant throughout Europe, from Scandinavia to 

 Greece, near human dwellings. It is by general consent allowed 

 to be the Swallow-wort of the earlier and mediaeval botanists. 

 (Theo. vii. 14 ; Stack.) 



N. S. VOL. IV. 2 E 



