316 AsTER History; Von MEGENBERG 
for Aster. He adds as Bavarian common name for this Ocwd/us 
porci, the name Himmelschlussel, ‘‘ Heaven’s-key,” a name of . 
Aster Amellus among Bavarian maidens of to-day. In addition to 
these two coincidences, when we identify his Oculus porci we 
find it to be Zragopogon porrifolius L., which plant some citations 
would imply was actually mistaken, perhaps about 1525, by 
Anguillara, for the true Aster of the Greeks. Strange that all 
these coincidences should arise independently ; and yet they have 
no doubt done so; but they lend to his chapter on Oculus porci a 
peculiar interest. This interest is enhanced still further by its 
moralizing digression which illustrates the character of the man; 
we hear in it not, as in any contemporary Herbarius, the Doctor 
physica, enumerating nothing but the uses of the plant current 
among approved Salernitan masters; but instead we hear the 
Canon addressing his audience and in his enthusiasm for his pretty 
flower and its moral, forgetting to say one word about any disease 
it is good for. So I translate the whole as literally as may be, its 
obscure early Bavarian often proving unintelligible to the Bavarian 
of to-day. 
‘Book V, c. 58, Von der Veltpluomen. 
“Oculus porci+ is a Veltpluom * and is also in Latin Flos-camfi,* 
and is also in common speech Himelsliissel.t The bloom grows 
readily on the high ground along the roads, and has a pleasant 
tasting root,§ so that people || dig it up and that swine feed on it. 
‘The bloom has a high stem that holds up the bloom toward 
heaven ; and it is very bright and beautiful, and if one should dry 
it, it nevertheless keeps the color just the same. The plant has 
little leaves which are very narrow. 
* Veltpluom, literally Field-bloom, i. e., /os-campi ; Bartholomaeus Anglicus also 
refers to Flos-campi similarly as specific name, and as if suggested to his mind by its 
use in this chapter of De Cantiprato,—which probably ended with the statement of tem- 
perament. 
Conrad is in his chapter 23, ** Cyclamen is called Sweinkraut and has also the name 
|| 7ragopogon porrifolius L. is now eaten in Bavaria under ‘the name of Schwarls 
wwurzel, and sometimes I used to see its flower there, yellow and red,” Bavaria. 
