ten eet aia ees ainietuntad babe ok 
THE CAPRIOLA OF ADANSON. 879 
imposita sanguinem me facit, & habet, ut inquit, in summitate 
—— galli. Hee a té herba i — si quim sit uulgo nota, & simu 
ari m is e 
uitam negligere, que ut antea diximus, sub Auicenns atq; eius 
Expositorium autoritate periclitatur. Hse proculdubio illa est 
quam partim sanguinariam ab effectu iam dicto, partim mabe! 
uulgo appellamus, , Plinius unam speciem graminis facit, 
uocat aculeatum, quoniam ei in acumine aculei sint shaciiny: quos 
ut idem Plinius inquit, conuolutos naribus inserunt, extrahuntq; 
ciendi sanguinis gratia. 
The meaning of this Passage, so far as it bears upon the present 
question, appears to be that among the mistakes of Pliny which the 
author dealt with, was the case of Sanguinaria, and that this mistake 
consisted in his making the two plants, which the Italians called 
sanguinaria and capriola respectively, into one Very grass. On 
referring to Parlatore, Flora Italiana, i. pp. 125-126 (1848), 223- 
224, it appears that the plants which have these Italian names are 
Digitaria sanguinalis Scop. and Cynodon dactylon Pers. vie eget A : 
it is therefore clear, notwithstanding the fact that writers between 
Loniceno an anson had confused again those Bebiasined that the 
former author intended in using the Italian name capriola to mean 
Ch yee ag and to exclude Panicum sampuiitsts t 
I r to understand what Adanson meant by the officinal 
gramen pen reference may be made to Scheuchzer’s Agrosto- 
graphia (1719), the standard book on grasses and allied plants, 
h was frequently quoted by Linneus, and is given under its 
author’s name in a list prefixed to the Species Plantarum (1753). 
Scheuchzer gives ia 93-112) an enumeration of the finger-grasses, 
‘‘ Dactyloidea dicta,’’ which comprises seventeen species ; ; this list 
) al, a 
officinal ; this oe officinal teat is calle (p. 104) fiir: 
Dactylon, radice repente, sive officinarum. There is therefore sufficient 
reason to believe that this was the plant intended by Adanson, and 
the same was also quoted by Linnezus, Sp. Pl. ed. 1, p. 58 (1753) 
for his Drea dactylon ; moreover, the other synonyms quoted by 
Linneus, /. c., were alike quoted by Scheuchzer, /.c., p. 104. The 
gegen one  eesistibl that Capriola Adans. was founded upon 
the e species as Cynodon Rich.; and there is no ground for 
thinking that ean included in the former genus the Panicum 
sanguinale L. 
