Hooker's Journal of Botany. 391 



at seven or eight shillings* As the work will soon be translated into French 

 and German, as well as republished in America, casts of the wood engravings 

 might be sold to the publishers in those countries, for as much as would 

 return to the London publishers the prime cost ; one third of that cost being, 

 we believe, the usual rate at which such casts are sold.. The copperplates 

 might then be reserved for the coloured edition, which is quite cheap enough 

 at a guinea,, considering the very superior style in which the colouring is done. 



Art. ST.. Hooker's Journal of Botany, &c. Part III. for July, p. 193. to 

 p. 288. Six plates. Is. 6d. 



We have noticed parts i. and ii. of thiswork in p. 232., and expressed our satis- 

 faction at its appearance. To the scientific botanist it must be highly accept- 

 able; and, as we have already observed, it is not without popular interest. 

 Mr. Hogg's paper on the classical plants of Sicily is concluded. In it we find 

 that Celtis australis, the European nettle tree, is considered, by Mr. Hogg, as 

 the true lotus tree of the Lotophagi. The tree is described by Theophrastus 

 as of about the height and figure of a pear tree; with fruit of about the size of 

 a bean, placed like the berries of the myrtle, changing colour, and ripening as 

 a bunch of grapes \ sweet, pleasant, and wholesome ;. and the food of the 

 Lotophagi. Wine was made of the berries ; and the wood, which was of a 

 dark colour, and hard, was used, among other purposes, for making flutes. 

 The wood is still used in Sicily for making flutes and other musical instru- 

 ments ;. in France, hayforks are made of the branches ; and, in Spain and 

 Greece, the berries are still eaten. The seeds of Pinus Pinea are called 

 Pinocchi in Italy and Sicily, and are used in desserts, puddings, and cakes, 

 like almonds. A cone of this pine, fastened on the top of a staff" adorned 

 with wreaths or flowers, made the thyrsus of the Bacchanalians; which was a 

 symbol of authority carried by the priest of Bacchus, and is frequently to be 

 seen in ancient sculptures and pictures. Mr. Hogg supposes the stone pine 

 must originally have been introduced from Greece into Italy and Sicily, as he 

 has never observed it in a natural wood, but only about villas and farm-houses. 

 The young heads of Asparagus acutifolius and albus aEe cut from wild plants, 

 and brought to table, in Sicily ; they are thin, bitter, and often stringy, and 

 form a poor substitute for the cultivated asparagus.. Muscari comosum is 

 common in the fields. According to Sibthorp, the bulbs of this hyacinth are 

 still eaten in Greece. The berries of Shiilax aspera,, when ripe, are of a 

 beautiful red colour, and are very ornamental : the plant grows as a creeper 

 in the hedges, on trees, &c. ; more especially the variety auriculata. The 

 date palm is not uncommon in Sicily ; and this tree, with the American 

 aloe and the Indian fig, gives to the Sicilian landscapes a singularly beautiful 

 and almost Oriental appearance. The dwarf fan palm (ChamaeVops humilis) 

 covers the wild uncultivated land and hills of Sicily, as the furze does those 

 of England. " A kind of light but strong hat is made by neatly plaiting 

 the leaves together; and the plant is used for brooms, seats for chairs, 

 thatch for cottages, and many other purposes." (p. 214.) The stems of the 

 ^rundo Z)6nax, the cultivated or pipe reed, are used for " many domestic 

 purposes in Italy and Sicily; for fences in gardens and vineyards, for props to 

 bind vines to, and for making shepherds' pipes, distaffs, fishing-rods, walking- 

 sticks, &c." Wheat, for which Sicily has been celebrated from the very 

 earliest period, is taken to certain places, named caricatorj, and warehoused in 

 pits, to be ready for exportation. Oats are preserved in a similar manner in 

 the south of Russia. " The sugar cane, having been introduced from Africa, 

 was some years ago much cultivated in the neighbourhood of Syracuse 

 but of late it has been abandoned, on account of the trade with Brazil." 

 From the Ripidium Ravennae, the Ravenna sugar cane, the shepherds' pipes 

 are also sometimes made. The common rice is cultivated extensively near 

 Lentini; and the air there is rendered very unwholesome by the putrefaction 



