XIV INTRODUCTION. 



Pliny the elder, whose Historia Natu- 

 ralis treats of plants in books xii to xxvii, 

 died in the first year of Titus, in that 

 eruption of Vesuvius which embalmed for 

 posterity the cities of Pompeii and Hercu- 

 laneum. He is the summarist of ancient 

 Botany ; and he has preserved much that 

 is valuable, with more that is curious. In 

 xvi. 95 is the locus classicus of the Druidic 

 veneration for the oak and its mistletoe. 

 In XX vi. 13 is the oldest extant notice of 

 the daisy. From xiii. 4 we learn that the 

 idea of sexual analogies and the fertilising 

 action of the pollen had occurred to the 

 ancients. 



Galen, the most famous name in medi- 

 cine, lived through the last seventy years 

 of the second century. He advises the 

 physician to know all plants, if possible : 

 but at least the useful herbs. As an autho- 

 rity for the medicinal qualities of plants 

 his name accompanies the whole literature 

 down to the latest Herbals, but he did 

 nothing for descriptive Botany. 



Apuleius, the author of Herbarium seu 

 de medicaminihus Eerlarum, is not the 



