212 CHAPTERS ON BRITISH BOTANY. [/uly , 



CoRiANDRUM. This plant, which is of rather uncertain oc- 

 currence in most countries, is called in Greek, Kopiavo<i, and is 

 said to be wild in Italy and the south of Europe. Theophrastus 

 (Hist. vii. 1, and de Causis, iv. 3) says that there are many kinds 

 of Coriander. From this it may be inferred, that his acquaint- 

 ance with the plant now called Coriander was not very intimate. 

 See Bil. 76. Whatever it be, it was cultivated in Greece in 

 Theophrastus' s time (see Stack. 39), and it is still cultivated; 

 and in the British Isles it is one of the most uncertain of our 

 foreign stray plants. 



CoRNus. The Cornel-tree, called in the Greek, Kpaveia, and 

 containing two sorts, the male and the female, C mas or mascula, 

 is described as producing valuable wood ; C. sanguinea, on the 

 other hand, bearing uneatable fruit and spongy, worthless wood. 

 Our British species is the female, difKvKpaveta, Cornus fosmina 

 of the ancients. (Bil. 34.) 



CoRONOPUs, or Crowfoot. This name in ancient times was the 

 representative of many plants, and the moderns have not quite 

 discarded it. Both Sprengel and Billerbeck unhesitatingly refer 

 Plant ago Coronopus to the plant of Theophrastus. (Spr. 82 ; 

 Bil. 33.) Stacldiouse says that it is of the 4th class, Tetrandria, 

 and that its name is descriptive of its habit, foliis radiatis super 

 terram (Theo. vii. 9), " the radiate leaves flat on the ground." 



CoRYLUs. This word is probably derived from Kapva, a nut, 

 and applied to many nuts with a qualifying word, as nux regia, 

 the "royal nut," or Walnut, nux pei^sica, the Almond, etc. The 

 Hazel^ C. Avellana, is common throughout Europe ; Theophrastus 

 notices both the wild, a^pia, and the cultivated^ i^fiepa, hazel- 

 trees (Hist. iii. 15). 



It might not occur to every reader that Walnut means foreign 

 nut, in contradistinction to the common nut. Wales and Welsh, 

 in the Teutonic languages, mean foreign. The Italians are 

 Welsh to the Germans. 



Crat^gus. The Hawthorn, C. Oxycantha, is a common tree 

 in most parts of Europe, and has been known from the earliest 

 times. Authors are not of one mind about the Cratagus of 

 Theophrastus. Billerbeck enters the common Whitethorn, C. 

 Oxycantha, as the equivalent of Crataegus, Theo. Clusius, in 

 his * Historia Plantarum,^ p. 9, states positively that C. torminalis 

 (Soi-bus torminalis) is Theophrastus's plant. In this opinion he 



