Hyacinthus and Vaccinium 



murice,' and in the Aeneid (xi. 772) the priest 

 Chloreus is described as ' peregrina ferrugine clarus 

 et ostro,' a phrase which must be taken as hen- 

 diadys. The Tyrian dye was probably both red 

 and purple, and ' rubens ' will cover both ; while 

 1 ferrugineus,' which is applied to objects of less cheer- 

 ful hue, such as Charon's boat (Ae. vi. 303) and the 

 gloom in the sky after Caesar's death (Ge. i. 467), not 

 only covers both but includes the tint of a dull and 

 lowering purple. That ' fulgor ' is ascribed to the 

 hyacinth (Ae. xi. 70) is rather against the martagon. 

 Last comes the matter of the inscription. In our 

 last passage Virgil omits the jpaTrrd of his original, 

 but he has a reference to it in the shepherd's riddle 

 (Ec. iii. 106), 



1 Die quibus in terris inscripti nomina regum 

 Nascantur flores,' 



to which the answer seems to be Afa?, who is Ajax. 

 Martyn says that on the martagon the dark spots 

 run together in such a manner as to form the 

 letters Al, ' which,' he naively adds, ' I have caused 

 to be represented in the figure.' It seems clear that 

 these marks had not run together on the specimen 

 supplied to Cole, who drew the illustration, for the 

 addition is stiff and unnatural. It may be com- 

 pared with Sowerby's figure in English Botany, 

 where the dark marks are drawn naturally. I grew 

 the martagon as a boy and I grow it now, and never 

 in half a century have I seen on it anything like 

 the letters which our good professor ' caused to be 

 represented.' 



59 



