590 Remarks on Mr. Lo?ig's Paper 



by his secret, he showed me several in their early stage ; and, though he 

 stoutly denied it, I am inclined to think that the plants to be grafted are 

 sown in the lemon or orange trunk, and that either they cast their roots into 

 it, or reach the ground through it. 



In regard to the elegant and very erudite dissertation of Mr. Long on the 

 Qucrcus and Fagus of the ancients, and the learned doubts of your brother- 

 in-law on its conclusions, concerning which you desire my opinion, I really 

 must declare myself too little competent to decide. The whole matter ap- 

 pears to me uncertain ; and that even had I the time to clip deeply into it, 

 we should arrive at little better than conjectures. After all the labours of 

 Matthiolus and his successors, of how very few of the plants named by the 

 ancients are we specifically certain ? Were they so themselves ? I am 

 myself inclined to think not. Many different objects were then confounded 

 under the same name; and, with all our imagined science, are so still. 

 Learned sceptics of our own age doubt even the existence of species. Other 

 firm believers in the immutability of forms, not mere nomenclators, but 

 philosophers, such as Reichenbach, baptise all marked variations as species : 

 thus the dog violet, in its passage through Europe and a part of Asia and 

 Africa, is saluted on its way, like the gods of old, by a multitude of names. 

 What we are pleased to call vulgar names change from district to district; 

 the same name is given to different plants at very short intervals. Witness 

 the United States of America, where, for example, the black oak of the 

 north is altogether another plant from the black oak of the south ; and we 

 must remember that all the ancient names were vulgar names. 



I will not do Theophrastus, himself so great an observer, and the predi- • 

 lected disciple of such an observer as Aristotle, the injustice to suppose that 

 it was his practice, like Pliny, to describe things he had never seen ; but it 

 is not impossible, that, in regard to the oaks, he merely recorded the accounts 

 of others ; in fact, he may only have registered what he learnt from the 

 foresters of Ida, He unfortunately says nothing of the fruit ; nevertheless, 

 had I had his work in my head or my hand, when I climbed that mountain, 

 I think I might have made something of his descriptions, such as they are, 

 in ascertaining the species or varieties he had in view ; but it can scarcely 

 be done, except on the spot. The oaks I gathered in the Troad were the 

 following : — Quercus 7Mex Linn., Q. coccifera Linn., Q. pseudo-coccifera 

 Desf., Q. lusitanica Lam. (Q. infectoria Oliv.~), Q. ^22'gilops Linn., Q. trojana 

 nob. (which is stiffer and more fastigiate than Q. ^E'gilops, with a cup 

 somewhat similar, and rigid leaves shining on both sides ; and was very spar- 

 ingly spread over the plain, mixed with the velanida, to the southward of Alex- 

 andria Troas), Q. 7?6bur Linn., and Q. Cevr'is Linti. About Kuckoonlou-Tepe 

 this last species assumes the form called Q. crinita by Olivier ; and higher up 

 the mountain, if I remember right, that with leaves more entire, and a smaller 

 and less bristly cup, which has been called Q, austriaca. 



The comparison of these modern names with those of Theophrastus is 

 not very easy. 



1 . Hemeris. Though I agree very generally with the adaptation of the 

 Theophrastian nomenclature, proposed by Mr. Long, 1 cannot believe that the 

 Cerris could have been his Hemeris, principally on account of its bitter acorn ; 

 and still think, as I mentioned in the It. Hisp., that we must look for this 

 tree either in Q Ballota Desf. (Q. rotundifolia Lam.), or, more probably, in some 

 of the sweet-fruited oaks mentioned by Professor Tenore in his Sylloge, 

 which, whether species or varieties, are asyet but imperfectly known. The 

 Q. gramuntia Linn, must be erased from our catalogues. It was a mere 

 variety of Q. P\e\, from the wood of Grammont, near Montpelier, in which, 

 from my own experience, I can vouch that many more such species might be 

 selected, depending on the mere forms of leaves. 



2. JEgilops. I agree generally with Mr. Long that this and the iEscuIus of 

 the Latins, to the greater part of the ancient world could only have been the 

 Q. -ffobur Linn., and its numerous varieties, as well as the fine species called 



