PLANTS OF GrxEECE. 247 



60. Atropa Mandragora, MavSpxyoVf^a., called also •■/of.yoyuvi. Used 

 for its supposed aphrodisiac qualities. 



61. V^iscum Album, MeXXx. This grows on the Silver fir on Mount 

 Parnes. It is not the plant from which they at present make bird- 

 lime, but from the Loranthus Europocus, which is called o'fog, and 

 grows in the mountains of Euboea, and at Athos. ' 



02. Erjngium Campestre, rij?- dyx-n-zi; to Botxv:. The bruised root 

 is applied by the Athenian shepherds to cure their asses when bitten 

 by venomous serpents. The following verses are made on this 

 plant : . 



T»7C ayuTrrji to (3otxvi 



Oyroiog to t^si, >£a» dBv to Triuvei^ 



I viv (x.yoe,7rr;v, ottou £%£<, X^^"^'' 



63. Papaver Rhoeas, ■7rx:Txf,ouva. A syrup is drawn in Zante from 

 the flowers, and an infusion of them taken as a pectoral. In Cyprus 

 it is called Trersivog from the red colour of the flower resembling a 

 cock's crest ; it is worn by the Greek girls as an ornament to their 

 head-dress. Papaver somniferum is called at Constantinople y.a.xuv ; 

 the heads of it are bruised and drank in decoction for coughs. 



Notes In/ f he Editor. ■ ' ■ . .' .. .:■ 



60. The same superstitious uses are now attributed to this plant as to the mandragora 

 of the ancients. Mandragorae putatur vis inesse amorem conciiiandi. Vossius de Idol, 

 lib. V. 



" I entered into conversation," says Dr. Hume in one of his journals, " with a Russian, 

 who had studied medicine at Padua, and was now settled at Limosol in Cyprus. In giving 

 me an account of the curiosities which he possessed he mentioned to me a root, in some 

 degree resembling the human body, for at one end it was forked, and had a knob at the 

 other, which represented the head, with two sprouts immediately below it for the arms. 

 This wonderful root he had dug up, he said, in the Holy Land with no little risque, for 

 the instant it appeared above the ground it killed two dogs, and would have killed him 

 also had he not been under the influence of magic." It is evident that the Russian doctor 

 was repeating some of the absurd stories that have been circulated from very early times 

 respecting the anthropomorphic character of the mandragora, and its supposed noxious 

 properties. In Lambecius Bib. Vin. lib. ii. torn. 2. is an engraving from a MS. of Dios- 

 corides ; a dog, having pulled up a root of mandragora, is represented as dying. Under 

 the print are these words, x6u)v ava<nraiv tov MavSpayo'pav, eVeit', aTroflvrjo-xcuv. See also in 

 Josephus, lib. vii. b. 3. the account of the root Baara. 



