Trees, Shrubs, and Plants of Virgil 



world. When the time came for him to do this he 

 shrank from the task, and, although he accomplished 

 it in the Aeneid, he avowed that he must have been 

 mad to undertake it. 



Flower, summer. 



Italian name, Palma da datteri. 



Panacea. 



'odoriferam panaceam ' (Ae. xii. 419). 



The plant here is clearly mythical, though there 

 is a Greek plant of the name which has been identi- 

 fied with a near relative of the parsnip. These 

 plants are of a sugary and scented tribe, and panacea 

 cannot be answerable for its kinswort. Still it is 

 better to keep the parsnip, like the hatter, at a dis- 

 tance from epic poetry. It shall therefore be judged 

 that Virgil's plant is not that of Theophrastus, but 

 a child of his own fancy. There are no fields of all- 

 heal ' on this side of the grave.' 



Papaver. 



' campum . . . urunt Lethaeo perfusa papavera somno' 



(Ge. i. 78). 

 ' Cereal e papaver' (lb. 212). 



umida mella soporiferumque papaver' (Ae. iv. 486). 

 1 summa papavera carpens ' (Ec. ii. 47). 



Although there are six species of poppy native to 

 Italy, Virgil probably deals only with the opium poppy 

 (Papaver somniferum) and its varieties. Pliny speaks 

 of three kinds, the white, the black, and the erratic, 

 which, he says, the Greeks call 'rhoeas.' The last 



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