XVlll INTRODUCTION. 



from that of the poet. Just as Virgil, de- 

 scribing the lemon when it was yet un- 

 known in Italy, borrowed a figure from 

 the laurel: — 



Ipsa ingens arbor faciemque simillima lauro : 



Et si Don alium late jactaret odorem 



Laurus erat; folia liaud uUis labentia ventis. . . . 



Of this kind was the earliest Description. 

 Thus Theophrastus, describing the Kvvoa^a- 

 Tov, compares the fruit for colour with the 

 pomegranate, and the leaf he compares to 

 the vitex agnus : and Dioscorides, speaking 

 of the same plant, says that its leaves are 

 broader than those of the myrtle. These 

 are our data for the 'interesting question 

 whether the Kwoa^arov was Rosa canina, 

 as Sprengel, or Rosa sempervirens, as 

 Fraas interprets it. 



So also Pliny (xxv. 59) in his description 

 of the famous verbenaca resorts to the oak 

 for the pattern of the leaves: — 'Folia 

 minora quam quercus angustioraque, divi- 

 suris majoribus:' — and so for ages after- 

 wards, the botanists having as yet but a 

 slender stock of technical terms, if they 

 could not be exact they could be graphic 



