Trees, Shrubs, and Plants of Virgil 

 Ulva. 



' ulvam . . . palustrem ' (Ge. iii. 175). 



' viridi procumbit in ulva ' (Ec. viii. 88). 



' in ulva | delitui ' (Ae. ii. 135). 



' informi limo glaucaque ... in ulva ' (ib. vi. 416). 



This, which one might expect to be among the 

 easiest, is among the more difficult to identify. 

 That the name indicates a species, and is not, as 

 some have supposed, a general name for marsh 

 plants with sword-like leaves, is sufficiently proved 

 by two lists in Ovid's Metamorphoses — 



' Non illic canna palustris, k 



nee steriles ulvae, nee acuta cuspide iunci ' (iv. 288) — 



a passage which describes a limpid Lycian lake ; 

 and this description of the scene of a boar-hunt : 



' Tenet ima lacunae 

 lenta salix ulvaeque leves iuncique palustres 

 viminaque et longa parvae sub harundine cannae ' (viii. 335). 



It is clear that ' harundo ' is Ovid's name for the 

 great or pole reed, Arundo donax, and ' canna ' his 

 name for the common reed, Phragmites communis. 

 Our passage and many others show that * ulva ' was 

 a common marsh plant with green leaves, that it 

 grew in masses, and that it was high enough, at 

 least, for a crouching man to hide n. Virgil's 

 epithet of * glauca ' does not help us, because the 

 plant of this passage belongs to the under-world, 

 where are no bright colours and no things of 

 earthly beauty. The reed of Cocytus is ' deformis ' 



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