bear's-breech. 49 



labiate, persistent. The corolla has but one lip, which is mono- 

 petalous, ample and plane, closed with hairs at the orifice, and 

 divided into three lobes at the extremity ; the place of the 

 upper lip is usurped by the calyx. The stamens are four, 

 didynamous, with villous anthers. The germen is seated on 

 a disk, and is two-celled, supporting a simple style and a bifid 

 stigma. The fruit is a capsule of two cells, opening elastically 

 with two valves ; each ceil containing a single roundish seed. 

 Plate S, fig. 3, (a) the corolla, stamens, and pistil ; (b) the pistil ; 

 (c) the capsule. 



This very elegant plant delights in warm countries^ such as 

 Italy, Egypt, the Levant, and the south of France ; growing in 

 moist, stony places, and on the banks of large rivers. Although 

 not a native, it is generally known and admired in the English 

 gardeUj where it has occupied a place since the commencement 

 of the sixteenth century. It is a perennial herbaceous plant, 

 and flowers from July to September. 



The generic name derived from a.y.a.v^a, a spine, does not apply 

 to this species, which is smooth and unarmed ; nevertheless it is 

 the Acanthus, par excellence, — the plant celebrated by Virgil 

 and other poets. It has been renowned for ages, on account of 

 the beauty of its leaves, which furnished the ancient sculptors 

 and architects with one of their chief ornaments. The Greeks 

 and Romans carved them upon their vases, and their massive 

 goblets*, and wove them into their costly vestments -f-. The 

 discovery of their ornamental character is contained in the fol- 

 lowing legend : 



" A young lady of Corinth, having died a few days before her marriage 

 was to have been celebrated, her afflicted nurse put into a basket different 

 articles of which the girl was fond, and placing it near her tomb, upon a 

 plant of the Acanthus, covered it with a large tile. The following spring 

 the Acanthus grew up, and its large leaves encompassed the basket ; but 

 meeting with the projecting tile, they were curved at the extremity and 

 bent down. An architect named Callimachus passing by, was struck with 

 the novelty and beauty of the figure, and resolved to apply it to the 

 decoration of the Corinthian capital." 



* Et nobis idem Alclmedon duo pocula fecit, 

 Et molli circum est ansas amplexus acantho. 



Virgil. Ec. iii. /. 45. 

 Summus inaurato crater erat asper acantho. 



Ovid. Met. lib. xiii. /. 701. 

 •f Et circumtextum croceo velaraen acantho. 



VirgU. JEn. lib.'i, 649. 



