THe ANCIENT TYPE 23 
The vernacular of modern Italy is directly stated by Berto- 
loni,* 1854, to use the name ame//o for it. Matthioli called it 
amelloin 1544 and Calceolarius + did so in 1566; but even if we 
exclude these as probably book-names, there remains its vernacu- 
lar use in the form ame//o on record in Targioni-Tozzetti’s diction- 
ary of Italian vernacular plant-names, Florence, 1809 ; as well as 
Bertoloni’s assertion in 1854, ‘‘ Virgilianum nomen hactenus su- 
perest.”’ 
IDENTIFICATION WITH VERGIL’s AMELLUS 
It was Matthioli also who made the received identification of 
Vergil’s Amedlus with Aster Atticus, making it on the ground of 
the agreement of Vergil’s description with that of Dioscorides, par- 
ticularly in the purple rays and erect and stiff stems, with branches 
only at the top, censuring on account of each of these features 
those interpreters of his time, who were seeking to prove that 
Vergil’s Amellus was their Chelidonium minor, the lesser celandine, 
Ficaria ranunculoides Rth. Others confused both plants with 
Primula veris L. Guilandini, t 1558, Gesner and Crato, at about the 
same date, had each his theory. Hermolaus Barbarus had sug- 
gested the chamomile. Another identification was that of Thalius, 
with the Caltha palustris, confuted by Bodaeus y Stapel in his edi- 
tion of Theophrastus, 822~3 (Amsterdam, 1644) and again by 
Wedel, De Amello, Jena, 1686. Another identification which 
Bodaeus and Wedel refute was that made by unnamed correspon- 
dents with the Greek melissophyllon, the Melittis melissophyllon 
L., on the faith of an ancient gloss in which Ame//us was rendered 
meliphyllon. Butto render Ame/lus by this whitish-flowered labiate 
plant disagreed with Vergil’s entire description of form and color. 
Wedel, 1686, devoted his inaugural address at Jena to a far- 
fetched attempt to prove that Amellus is I/e//lotus officinalis Willd. 
claiming that Vergil meant by his “purple leaves” or petals, 
simply “shining foliage.” 
Lobel in 1570 marks the chief hesitancy § among authors of 
* Bertoloni’s Flora Italica, 9 : 257. 
+ Calzolari’s ‘‘ 11 viaggio di Monte Baldo ... di Verona,... si piante e herbe che ivi 
nascono,’’ 8, 1566 ( bese Venice).. 
+ Melchior belli ‘¢ Theon, ... adversus Matthiolum,’’ Padua, 1558. 
Pena and Lobel, ite asverwile nova, 147, 
