318 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXI. 



" marine " 3 violet, have petals somewhat broader than the 

 others, but not so odoriferous ; the Calatian 4 violet, too, which 

 has a smaller leaf, is entirely destitute of smell. This last is 

 a present to us from the autumn, the others from the spring. 



CHAP. 15. THE CALTHA. THE SCOPA REGIA. 



Next to it comes the caltha, the flowers of which are of 

 similar colour and size ; 5 in the number of its petals, however, 

 it surpasses the marine violet, the petals of which are never 

 more than five in number. The marine violet is surpassed, 

 too, by the other in smell ; that of the caltha being very power- 

 ful. The smell, too, is no less powerful in the plant known as 

 the "scopa regia;" 6 but there it is the leaves of the plant, 

 and not the flowers, that are odoriferous. 



CHAP. 16. THE BACCHAR. THE COMBRETUM. ASARTJM. 



The bacchar, 7 too, by some persons known as "field nard," 



3 This has been identified with the Cheiranthus incanus, the Cheiranthus : 

 tricuspidatus of the shores of the Mediterranean, the Hesperis maritima of 

 Linnaeus ; also, by some commentators, with the Campanula Medium of 

 Linnaeus. 



4 So called, according to Pintianus and Salmasius, from Calatia, a town 

 of Italy. Fee adopts the reading " Calathiana," and considers it to have 

 received that name from its resemblance to the Caltha mentioned in the 

 next Chapter. Dalechamps identifies it with the Digitalis purpurea; 

 Gessner, Dodonaeus, and Thalius, with the Gentiana pneumonanthe, others 

 with the Gentiana ciliata and Pannonica, and Sprengel with the Gentiana 

 verna of Linnaeus. Fee admits himself totally at a loss on the subject. 



5 * Concolori amplitudine." Gronovius, with considerable justice, ex- 

 pres^ses himself at a loss as to the exact meaning of these words. If 

 Sprengel and Salmasius are right in their conjectures that the Caltha of 

 Pliny and Virgil is the marigold, our Calendula olficinalis, the passage 

 cannot mean that the flower of it is of the same size and colour with 

 any variety of the violet mentioned in the preceding Chapter. From the 

 description given of it by Dioscorides, it is more than probable that the 

 Caltha of the ancients is not the marigold, and Hardouin is probably 

 right in his conjecture that Pliny intends to describe a variety of the violet 

 under the name. Fee is at a loss as to its identification. 



6 Or " royal broom." Sprengel thinks that this is the Chenopodium 

 scoparia, a plant common in Greece and Italy ; and Fee is inclined to 

 coincide with that opinion, though, as he says, there are numerous other 

 plants with odoriferous leaves and pliant shoots, as its name, broom, would 

 seem to imply. Other writers would identify it with a Sideritis, and 

 others, again, with an Achillaea. 



7 See B. xii. c. 26. Fee is inclined to coincide with Ruellius, and to 

 identify this with the Digitalis purpurea, clown's spikenard, or our Lady's 



