NAMES FOR ASTER ATTICUS 61 
Aster also occurs once as a place-name ; but a more common 
place-name was Asterion, name, says the Pseudo Plutarch, of Mt. 
Cithaeron, and of the island of Tenedos, the river of Argolis, etc. 
Other uses of the word Aster unmodified are given as three 
by some dictionaries (as Stephanus); as name of the medicinal 
white-earth of Samos, q. v., 7zfra; name of a compound medica- 
ment, a poultice; and name of a stomachic. The last is a form 
of the use as medicament, and that use, and the use for the white- 
earth, being apparently derived from the use for the plant Aster 
as a similar remedy, will be treated separately. 
NAMES FOR ASTER ATTICUS 
With the following names used for Aster Atticus or confused 
with it, are added the ancient synonyms for the other Aster then 
known, their Tripolium. 
ALANnT.—Ger. for elecampane, a word of obscure origin, A7uge ; 
but apparently from its Greek equivalent, ¢A¢yzov, Lat. Helenium. 
Alant occurs in Mid. and High German. <A/antidium also in 
sense of elecampane (fide Meyer) occurs inthe Physica of St. Hil- 
degardis, about 1150. A/a is equivalent, in Sp. and Portu. (fide 
Kluge).—The lack of fixity in application of the word is however in- 
dicated by present Ger. alantbeere, black currant.—In some way the 
name Alant seems early to have been confused with Aster or to have 
been so inclusive as to cover other Asters than elecampane, elecam- 
pane itself being an Aster to many, as of Tournefort, and the As¢er 
officinale of others, as Allioni, 1785. Probably from such a sup- 
posed equivalence of Alant and Aster came the application of 
Alant in the form Ellend to Eryngium, which was long confused 
with Aster in the middle ages, from Serapion to Fuchs. See El- 
lend, zxfra. Ellend surely has but a superficial resemblance to 
elend, wretched, foreign: and has been current as German for 
Eryngium for at least 400 years. 
Auipium.—Avicenna, Serapion, Matthaeus Sylvaticus, Fuchs, 
1531, Euricius Cordus, 1534, Bock, 1536. Arabic name for 
Aster in Latinized form, from alhiben=inguen, according to Fuchs 
1531, who censures Matthaeus Sylvaticus for identifying it with 
Eryngium. See infra under Fuchs. 
AMELLO, among Italians, MJatthioli, 1554? 1568, and after ; 
