Preface 



later dates several French botanists published Floras 

 of Virgil. In view of more recent discoveries their 

 conclusions cannot always be accepted, and, as their 

 works have long been out of print, there seems room 

 for the present little work. 



The Flora Italiana of Dr. Giovanni Arcangeli 

 (2nd edition, Turin, 1896) is useful in its records of 

 the present geographical range of Virgil's plants. Of 

 later knowledge, perhaps the most notable discovery 

 is the difference between the Italian and the English 

 elms, but Arcangeli was able to accept incidentally 

 Boissier's identification of Virgil's phaselus with the 

 plant known in Italy as fagiolo dalV occhio. Although 

 Virgil directs the sowing of it in autumn, even 

 Martyn, followed by many editors, identified it with 

 the tender French bean, which probably did not find 

 its way to Europe before the days of Queen 

 Elizabeth. 



It is to be regretted that Conington, who gave 

 much thought to Virgil, had little interest in natural 

 objects. His notes on plants are sometimes gro- 

 tesquely in error. It is, however, to another child 

 of the cloister that readers of the ancient pastoral 

 poems owe the information that birds follow the 

 plough in order to pick up the grain. Unless a 

 benevolent ploughman sowed it with his heels, the 

 birds must have made a poor living of it. Birds do 

 pick up grain, but not behind the plough. Perhaps 

 the obituary of the house of Grub could provide a 

 more mournful explanation. 



I ought to say that with two or three plants on my 



vi 



