362 CHAPTERS ON BRITISH BOTANY, [December, 



Elated with my success at finding the Linncea borealis, and 

 more so at being the first to discover it in the wood of Scone, I 

 returned home, considering myself amply compensated for the 

 want of the Moneses by the discovery of the Linncsa. I dis- 

 covered no other rare plant in the wood that day. 



I collected a few specimens of Pyrola minor and Habenaria 

 bifolia, when I coidd get nothing better. 



Bridge End, Perth, Sept. 1859. 



CHAPTEES ON BEITISH BOTANY. 

 CHAPTER III. 



Pliny's Notice of Early Grecian Writers on Plants : Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod. — 

 Medical Authors : Hippocrates. — Philosophers : Pythagoras, Aristotle, Theo- 

 phrastus. — Catalogue of Plants recommended as Remedial Agents by Hippo- 

 crates. 



Pliny the Elder, book xxv. chap. 5, Bohn's edition, vol. v. p. 81, 

 informs us, that " the first person of whom the remembrance has 

 come down to us, as having treated with any degree of exactness 

 on the subject of plants, is Orpheus.'^^ He proceeds to enume- 

 rate other ancient authors who treated on this subject. " Next 

 to him Musseus and Hesiod, of whose admiration of the plant 

 called Polium we have already made some mention. Orpheus 

 and Hesiod, too, we find speaking in high terms of the efficacy 

 of fumigation. Homer also speaks of several other plants by 

 name, of which we shall have occasion to make further mention 

 in their appropriate places." 



" In latter times again, Pythagoras, that celebrated philosopher, 

 was the first to write a treatise on the properties of plants, a 

 work in which he attributes the origin and discovery of them to 

 Apollo, iEsculapius, and the immortal gods in general." 



If Pliny's account of this work by the Sage of Samos is to be 

 credited, its loss is not very material. Our knowledge of plants 

 would not have been much increased by its preservation. Pliny 

 has probably recorded all the botanical facts to be gleaned from 

 this ancient philosopher. 



* A mystic (? mythic) personage of the early Grecian mythology, under whose 

 name many spurious works were circulated. See Pliny, loe. cit. 



