on the Qiiercus and Fagus of the Ancients. 591 



'Q. briitia by Tenore, which, from dried specimens I possess from that dis- 

 tinguished botanist, may be only a splendid variety of it. Notwithstanding 

 this, though it may appear paradoxical, I cannot avoid thinking that the 

 Cerris was likewise confounded under this name in the Idaean chain; for 

 it is by far the finest species in the district, and, as I mentioned above, the 

 nomenclature of those times was very vague. 



3. Platyphyllos. I agree with Mr. Long that this was probably the Q. 

 ./©'gilops Linn. 



4. Haliphlceos. I think, likewise, that it is very probable that this tree was 

 the Q. lusitanica Lam. (Q. infectoria Oliv.). This latter name would be 

 better adapted to it ; but, in the present state of the science, the imperious 

 necessity of adhering to priority obliges us to accept the former. Like many 

 other species, Q. Toza Bosc, for example, it is sometimes a bush, at others 

 a tree of more or less elevation. This happens even to Q. .Rdbur, whose 

 varieties, Q. glomerata, Q. viminalis, and others, produce their fruit on very 

 low stocks. 



5. Phegos. Mr. Long appears to me to have fully established that this 

 tree was the chestnut. It appears to me, also, that he has great merit in 

 showing that the Fagus of all the earlier Latin authors was the wild chestnut. 

 But it is probable that the beech was even then confounded with it. The 

 beech is a rare tree in Italy and Greece, where it begins to approach its 

 southernmost geographical term, and, in so doing, follows the universal vege- 

 table law, which causes the plants of the arctic coasts to mount the Alps, 

 and our Canarian euphorbias of the maritime region to reappear, not on the 

 tropical shore, but on the hills of the islands of Cape Verd. The beech, 

 found only on the higher regions, was probably considered as a mountain 

 Fagus. It might be doubted whether Virgil was acquainted with it, were it not 

 for the passage alluded to by Mr. W. Currie, where he describes it as a light 

 white wood, fit to make plough handles, and likens it to the tilia, which, 

 compared with other passages, seems to prove that he confounded it with the 

 chestnut. It certainly never grew along the slopes of the Mincio, " Qua. 

 se subducere colles incipiunt;" and the " patula fagus" of Tityrus must have 

 been a chestnut, unless that shepherd had roamed high up into the subalpine 

 region.* Pliny certainly knew the beech j and, as far as his personal know- 

 ledge reached, it was the plant he looked upon to be the Fagus ; but when, with his 

 undiscriminating appetite, he assimilates to himself the observations of others, 

 he confounds the Fagus with the chestnut, as in his " dulcissima omnium fagi ;" 

 and his assertion, that the beleaguered Chians lived on beech mast, a food 

 to be procured no where in the Greek Archipelago, unless brought down in 

 shiploads from the forests of Haemus. Caesar, when he asserts that the 

 Fagus did not grow in Britain, could only, unless he was misinformed, have 

 meant the chestnut. 



Notwithstanding the assertion of Mrs. Piozzi, which I corroborate above, 

 the beautiful passage of the Georgics, on grafting, appears to me to prove 

 only that Virgil, practically, was little versed in the subject. Nevertheless, 

 though the idea is ingenious and ingeniously sustained, yet I am of the opi- 

 nion of the writer in the Gentleman' s Magazine, that the beauty of the 

 passage would be lost, if we agree with Mr. Long that in the words " Castaneae 

 t'agos " he alluded to the insertion of the chestnut on its own stock. We 

 must, I think, with Mr. W. Currie, consider the text as vitiated, and adopt the 

 alteration as proposed by the judicious Heyne. 



Boulogne-sur-Mer, August 17. 1839. 



* The Fagutales of the neighbourhood of Rome could only have been chest- 

 nut groves. 



R R 4 



