lii INTRODUCTION. 



And the same conclusion meets us again 

 by another path. There are cases in 

 which, though the Latin name has not 

 been adopted in form, yet its idea has 

 been imitated, and expressed by a Saxon 

 translation. Some of these are couched 

 in words that are so markedly archaic, 

 that we can pronounce them to have been 

 antiques to the men of the tenth century, 

 and these must be held to indicate an 

 acquaintance with Roman botany dating 

 from the time of the Conversion if not 

 from that of the Colonisation itself. 



I will give an example of this. The 

 Saxon rendering of Heliotropium is Sol 

 sece and Sigel hweorfa, that is, Sun-seek- 

 ing and Sun-revolving. The form Sol sece 

 has been suggested by the Latin Solse- 

 quium ; but nevertheless it is composed of 

 pure Saxon elements. There were two 

 archaic names for the Sun, namely Sol 

 and Sigel. Both these words were ar- 

 chaic in the days of Alfred. He knew 

 them only as antique words in the old 

 Saxon poems that he loved so well. The 

 current term for the chief luminary was 



