Mr. James Hardy on Carex Muricata 55 



Ischaemon of "Pliny (Hist. Nat. Lib. xxv. c. 45 or c. 8 in 

 old editions) ; an unfortunate decision, from which Bauhin 

 takes care to express his dissent. Guilandinus was rather 

 headstrong. " Audaculus," says Haller, " neque absque 

 erroribus.' 1 The Ischaemon, a Thracian plant, was thus 

 named from its property of stanching blood, and was " an 

 herb like a Myletor Hirse,* having sharp leaves and mossie." 

 On Sprengel's authority it is the Andropogon Ischcemum of 

 Linnaeus, Syst. Plant, 1483, 16; the "Gramen Dactylon spicis 

 villosis " of C. Bauhin, &c. The superstitious old Romans 

 wore about the person portions of the Italian sort as an 

 amulet against haemorrhage. In the subsequent year, 1579, 

 Bauhin proceeded to Provence and Languedoc, and in the 

 marshes near Montpellier (he mentions having been there in 

 the beginning of summer), he again detected a smaller state of 

 his " Gramen Cyperoides ; " this name being given to it by the 

 learned men there. Montpellier was also a noted University 

 "for the study of Physick, and for that happily seated, the 

 country round about affording great variety of medicinal 

 herbs."f With whom Bauhin conferred there on plants does 

 not appear. Rondelet, the first lecturer on Dioscorides in that 

 seminary, died in 15664 He imbued his pupils with his 

 own zest for botanical research. Among the more eminent 

 were Rauwolf, the Oriental traveller; J. Molinaeus, the coad- 

 jutor of J. Dalechampius, in the ponderous Herbal " Historia 

 Lugdunensis ; " and Peter Pena, conjunct author with Lobel 

 of the " Adversaria. "§ P. Pena mentions " quibusdam non 

 parum eruditis Medicis, ut Rondeletio et Assatio praeceptoribus 

 exercitatissimis," who were of opinion that Ischaemon was the 

 grass, now known as Panicum sanguinale, L. These may 

 have been the notables of the Montpellier school; the Mons- 

 pelienses, elsewhere referred to by him, and by both the 

 Bauhins. The Montpellier physic garden was not established 

 till 1598, and was first presided over by Teter Richier de 

 Belleval, an Italian, who published a catalogue of its con- 

 tents in that year ; but this was nearly twenty years posterior 

 to Bauhin's visit. || 



* " Serpit e terra milio similis, ftyiis aspens et 'anuginosis." — Plin. " It 

 coueheth and creepeth low by the ground, and is like unto Millet, but that the 

 leaves be rough and haivie.'' Phil. Holland. 



f Feylyn's Cosmography by Bohun, p. 1 76. London, 1703, fol. 



% Tourne'ort Isagoge in Rem Herb., p, 31. 



§ Stirpium AdveiFan'a >'ova p. 4. Antwerp, 1576, fol. 



|| Tournefort's Isagrge, in Inst. Pei Herb. p. 42. Hal es Bibliotheca Botanica. 

 I. p. 322. 



