1858.] AizoiDEs. . 435 



leek, which is mentioned by Hippocrates as growing on walls, and 

 which was observed by Sibthorp, almost in our own times, grow- 

 ing in similar places in Constantinople and Greece. 



Pliny, who unites several plants under this term Aizoon, as our 

 ancient botanists included many species and genera of modern 

 days under the names Sedum, Sempervivum, or Crassula, distin- 

 guishes the Houseleek by the term Hypogeson, a plant growing 

 under projecting eaves, or in spouts, gutters, or on walls and on 

 roofs. Another ancient author, Op. Aurelius, further writes that 

 it was planted ou roofs, because in some places there was an opi- 

 nion prevalent among the people (" in nonnullis locis plebis animos 

 invaserit opinio ") that the houses whereon the Houseleek grows 

 would not be struck by lightning (" non feriri fulmine domum in 

 cujus tegulis Sedum vireat"). This explains the medieval name 

 barba Jovis, Jupiter's beard ; herba tonitrui, as the glossologists 

 among our Anglo-Saxon progenitors construe Hamwyrt, or House- 

 wort, or Houseleek. The same plant is called Husloek in the an- 

 cient German language, also Bonderloek or Thunderleek, which 

 is given as an equivalent oi Semperviva or Sempervivum. The 

 Swedish Tdklok is also a synonym of the same well known spe- 

 cies. Assuming this to be the original Aizoon, which has not 

 yellow but rather pinkish or pale rose-coloured flowers, it may 

 be further surmised that the colour has little or nothing to do 

 with the application of the specific term aizoides to the few plants 

 wherewith it is associated. But even admitting that colour is 

 one of the qualities in which the resemblance consists, it is not 

 the sole resemblance. There is another similarity existing be- 

 tween the Houseleek and the Sawifraga aizoides, viz. fleshy or 

 succulent leaves ; and there is another and more remarkable 

 resemblance between the Aizoon and both the British species 

 which are called aizoides, — S. aizoides and Draba aizoides, — viz. 

 the rosulate or rose-like tufts of leaves which are formed by the 

 barren shoots of both plants, and from the centre of which the 

 future flowering stems of both these plants spring. This pecu- 

 liarity is not confined to the Houseleek, though it be very pro- 

 minent in it, but exists more or less among the species in- 

 cluded in the genera Sedum and Sempervivum. Nor is it ex- 

 clusively characteristic of the two species termed aizoides in the 

 genera Draba and Saxifraga, but it does exist nearly as promi- 

 nently in them as it does in the Houseleek. 



