I860.] CHAPTERS ON BRITISH BOTANY, 213 



is followed by Stackhouse. If the father of botany had trans- 

 mitted to his descendants as good a figure of his plant, whatever 

 it be, as Clusius has given us of the Plantanus orientalis {Occi- 

 dent alls?), which occupies a considerable part of this ninth page, 

 there would have been no difficulty in identifying the plant of 

 the ancient Greek. 



Crocus. Several species or forms of this well-known genus 

 of plants are recorded by Theophrastus as abounding in the 

 groves and on the hills of Greece. They are mentioned among 

 other bulbous-rooted plants, as garlic, lily, iris, etc. Saffron is still 

 used medicinally, but its cultivation in this country has long ceased. 



CuscuTA, The Dodder is named by Theophrastus, according 

 to Billerbeck, 36, Cans. ii. 3, KaSvra^: Stackhouse says that its 

 class is uncertain, which could not be the case if Dodder be the 

 plant intended by Theophrastus. According to Sprengel our 

 C. europcea is the Orobanche of Theophrastus's Hist. vi. 6, so 

 called because it grew round the pulse and tean crops, and 

 choked them. Sp. 83. 



Cyperus. Of Cyperacese, Billerbeck, p. 17, notices that Cype- 

 7'us longus, also Scirpus Holoschoenus, S. mucronatus, et *S^. mari- 

 timus, are found in Greece. He does not say that they are all 

 described by Theophrastus. Sprengel has in his list, in addition 

 to the above, Schoenus nigricans, but he has not given Cyperus 

 longus as one of Theophrastus's plants. 



Daphne. This poetic term, which frequently occurs in the 

 works of the ancient Greek botanists, is intended to signify some 

 sort of laurel. Two British species bear this name, viz. Dajyhne 

 Mezereum, the Mezereon shrub, and D. Laureola, the dwarf 

 Laurel. They are not noticed by Theophrastus. The only laurel- 

 like plant common to Greece and Britain is probably the prickly 

 shrub which bears a very unpoetic name in our vernacular. 

 Butcher' s-broom (Bil. 244). Ruscus aculeatus, or KevrpofivppivT} 

 and Kevrpofivpcnvr], for it appears in both forms, receives a more 

 poetic and elegant name from the imaginative Greeks, than it 

 has obtained from the more practical inhabitants of the west. 

 Prickly Myrtle or Prickly Laurel is a politer and more eupho- 

 nious name than Butcher' s-broom. 



DiANTHUs, the divine flower [htofi avOo^;), is enumerated by 

 the early historian of botany as one of the herbaceous plants of 

 Greece. Many members of this family are common to England 



