132 AsTER History; VERGIL 
of that ancient scholiast who wrote the gloss on a margin of 
Vergil, identifying Amellus with Melissophyllon. But that plant, 
the honey-balm, honey-leaf literally, in its form pzhty»ddov, had, as 
Bodaeus observes, no proper color or form to agree with the 
amellus of Vergil. Yet Salmasius, the learned commentator of 
the seventeenth century, subscribed * to this identification. 
That Amellus was connected with m/, honey, though ina dif- 
ferent way, was also the belief of Wedel, who argued its identity 
with his Melilotus luteus, the Melilotus officinalis Willd., though a 
more violent contrast to Vergil’s description could hardly be found. 
Personally I am inclined to think the resemblance of the word 
Amellus to mel is purely accidental. 
Singularly enough, when Miller, watching A. Amellus L., 
to see what insects visited it, at Haarhausen in Thuringia, on 
Sept. 13, 1871, found it thronged with numerous apparent bees— 
they proved on close examination to be the dipterous insect Eris- 
zalis arbustorum \., the well-known bee-mimicking fly which in 
shape, size and color is with difficulty distinguished from the honey- 
bee even when at rest. Did all the Roman reputation of the 
flower as one of the wild plants loved by bees, rest on observation 
of similar visits of Eristalis, mistaken for an actual bee? But 
Vergil’s father was a practical bee-keeper, and made a good income 
from his honey, and it was not made from Zristalis. No doubt a 
longer scrutiny of the flowers now would have shown the honey- 
bee an actual visitor, as it is so to American Asters, and to their 
European kindred Anthemis tinctoria, Conyza squarrosa, etc. 
A second Vergilian reference to Aster has been claimed as follows: 
Among the “ Minora” or shorter poems attributed to Vergil, occurs 
a little poem under the title, as printed by Koberger, of “ P. V. 
Maronis hortulus,” + in which among the flowers of the garden 
some are mentioned as “ two-colored,” and which may have been 
_ the violet and yellow blossoms of his favorite, the Aster Amellus. 
The poet, Vergil or mediaeval follower, writes, 
Flores nitescunt discolore gramine 
P inguntque terras gemineis honoribus, 
© Apes susurro murmurant gratae leni, 
oe cage summa florum vel novos rores legunt. 
*Salmasius, Plinian. Exercit. in Solin. 102, 
t Vergil, edn. Koberger, Nuremberg, 1492; fol. 318. 
