IN MODERN GREECE. 95 



which is not unlike that of blood, and which has even pro- 

 cured for the species the name of Digitaria sanguinalis. In 

 the same manner the capricious mediaeval imagination pro- 

 nounced liver-wort, with its marbled leaves, a sovereign 

 remedy for diseases of the lungs, organs remarkable for 

 their marbled appearance. 



Dioscorides is quite as explicit as Pliny. What the latter 

 names Gramen, he, however, calls Agrostis. After having 

 particularised the nodosities of the stem a feature common 

 to nearly all the Graminaceae he describes very clearly the 

 long creeping roots put forth by the said stem; and 

 he does not forget to mention the sugary savour, so char- 

 acteristic of the rhizomes ('' yXyxs/'ag) of the Triticum 

 repens* Theophrastus confines himself to indicating the 

 Agrostis as a herb which infests the fields.t 



The Cynodon dactylon is, at the present day, very common 

 in Greece, where it is specially partial to low grounds, which 

 are somewhat damp and sandy. The inhabitants call it 

 Agriada, a name derived from 7/or, "wild." But if we 

 may believe Fraas, the author of a Flora Classic^ the genuine 

 dog's-tooth, Triticum repens, is, on the contrary, very rare in 

 the land of Socrates. This is a curious fact, if a fact, for 

 geographical botany. 



Throughout the Middle Ages, and down to the eighteenth 

 century, were confounded, under the generic name of Gramina, 



* Dioscorides, iv. 30. 



t Theophrastus, " Historia Plantarum," i. 10 ; xi. 2, 4. 



