486 HISTORY OF THE HOUSELEEK. \July , 



I think the above observations confirm the remark made by 

 the editor of the ' Phytologist' in a late number, namely, that 

 the common names of our plants were given by our ancestors^ 

 whether of the Celtic^ Saxon, or Roman stock, in consequence 

 of some property or utility they possessed. S. B. 



HISTORY OF THE HOUSELEEK. 



One of the few plants described and named by the ancients, 

 and satisfactorily identified by modern botanists, is the House- 

 leek. A popular and still well-known work, ' The Journal of a 

 Naturalist,^ gives the following rather whimsical origin of the 

 vulgar nomenclature of plants. He is good enough to inform 

 his readers that " modern science has been pleased to wrap up 

 the meaning of its epithets" — in plain English, the names of 

 plants — " in Greek or Latin terms, but in very many cases they 

 are the mere translations of the despised old vulgar names." 



The history of the Houseleek will convince the reader that 

 in this instance at least, and a hundred might be produced, the 

 common or vulgar name, as the lively author expresses it, is an 

 exact translation of the name by which the plant was known 

 among the Greeks and Romans. 



The Houseleek appears to have been first noticed or named 

 or published by Hippocrates, who calls it Kpivavdefiov to eiri tcov 

 oLKwv (jivofievov, or the "liliaceous flower growing on houses." 

 Theophrastus, the earliest writer on plants, describes the same 

 . under the name aei^coov, or Everlasting or Everliving (Theoph. i. 

 7, 14). Dioscorides, the contemporary of Pliny, calls it aec^coov 

 TO /jieya, or the great Everlasting. Pliny, in the twenty-fifth 

 book of his Natural History, writes that " there are two kinds 

 of Aizoon, the greater and the less. The former," he continues, 

 "some authors call Hypogeson {vTroyeia-ov) , because it grows on 

 roofs, gutters, and on walls of houses." Op. Aurelius states that 

 it is sown on tiles {tegulis), and for this reason, viz. that in 

 some places there is an opinion that the building whereon it 

 grows will be saved from lightning, — " plebis animos invaserit 

 opinio non feriri fulmine domum in cujus tegulis Sedum {House- 

 leek) vireat." From this fact the origin of the other Latin 

 name by which the plant was known in the Middle Ages is easily 



