Avena and Avena Sterilis 



ago pan-pipes of straw were still made in remote 

 parts of Oxfordshire, but even at that time the 

 Punch and Judy men seem always to have employed 

 reeds. 



Italian name, Vena. 



Baccar. 



hederas passim cum baccare ' (Ec. iv. 19). 

 ' baccare frontem cingite' (Ec. vii. 27). 



The name covers at least three species of cyclamen, 

 only one of which, C. repandum, flowers in the 

 spring. The other two species are autumnal, and 

 geographically seem not to overlap, C. Europaeum 

 not growing south of Lombardy and C. Neapoli- 

 tanum not north of the Apennines. In Lombardy 

 the former still bears the name of ' baccare,' but 

 in the Apennines the only name I have ever got 

 from the peasantry for either of the other species 

 is ' scacciabile,' which doubtless refers to the purga- 

 tive power. An allied species, C. hederaefolium, 

 with a paler flower, is naturalized here and there 

 in southern England. There is still considerable 

 confusion in the nomenclature of these species. 



The blossoms of the sowbreads, to give them their 

 English name, are still made into nosegays and 

 wreaths, not only in Italy, but also in the Tyrol, 

 where children throw bunches of them into coaches 

 and carriages and look for a reward. It is possible 

 that there are districts where the flowers and the 

 tubers are used, as they were in Theophrastus' time, 



21 



