1898] BRIEFER ARTICLES 49 
posing that Panicum sanguinale was the Sanguinella of the ancient 
writers. As regards Capriola, this name was generally used in con- 
nection with the former, as a local name for a plant, which at that time 
was considered identical with Sanguinella or Sanguinaria. However, 
there is a third name, “ Dactylon,” which was used by Pliny for a 
“ finger-grass”’” possessing the same properties as Sanguinella, but 
there is no further clue to its identity. This plant “ Dactylon” has evi- 
dently formed the basis for a number of finger-grasses by later writers, 
enumerated as Gramen dactyloides, etc., and it was one of these which 
Adanson considered as identical with Capriola. We see from these 
early data how very uncertain Capriola stands as a genus in botanical 
history, and we shall herein try to demonstrate that a consultation of 
the writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries does not show 
any closer identity of Capriola with Cynodon. 
Leonard Fuchs was perhaps the first writer who tried to identify 
Sanguinaria and Capriola, of which he makes mention in a chapter, 
“De Manna,” in Brunfels’ Herdarum vivae eicones. Both names are 
referred by Fuchs to the so-called “manna grass.” Very few Graminee 
are described by Ruellius, but he knew Pliny’s Gramen aculeatum, 
which he has discussed briefly. He mentions a new name for this 
grass, Dens canis, from which the later French name, “Chien dent” 
_ became derived ; but he refers also to Capriola and Sanguinaria as 
Synonyms. There is only one point in his very brief description of 
this grass which seems to throw some light upon its identity, and this 
is that the number of spikes is given as “ quini senive.” Cynodon is 
not known to produce more than four or five branches in the inflores- 
cence, while it is very common to find seven in Panicum sanguinale. 
Although Lobelius has described a Gramen Canarium recognizable as 
Cynodon, and an Jschemon vulgare which may be our Panicum, he 
does not give any reference to either Capriola or Sanguinaria. In 
accordance with Fuchs the “manna-grass” was adopted by Dodoens, 
who has not only described but even figured two species, Gramen 
Manne primum and alterum, both of which may readily be identified 
as Panicum sanguinale and P. Crus-galli. The figure of the first is so 
well executed that it makes any further comment unnecessary. We 
find here for the first time a true representation of P. sanguina/e, and 
Its §eographical distribution was at that time given as Germany, 
Bohemia, Italy, and Belgium, where it was cultivated, but was found 
also naturalized in uncultivated fields, etc. One of its popular names 
Mo. Bot. wai deny 
900. 
