308 
attempt at describing an article like cyoivoc. In fact, the only 
reference to it which contains a descriptive element is in 
Dioscorides* where he gives instructions for the selection of the 
material :—it is to be fresh, reddish (éurvééov), many-flowered, 
purplish and whitish when split apart (7.¢e., when the leaf-bases, 
which are purplish and white, are pulled apart), to emit an odour 
like roses when rubbed in the hand, and to have a hot, pungent 
taste. The use of the drug continued in the West after the 
downfall of the Roman Empire, although apparently only for 
medicinal purposes, through the Middle Ages and even into the 
18th century, when it gradually became obsolete. We find it in 
the prescriptions of Aétius (450 A.D.), and in the writings of the 
School of Salerno. Here the name ‘palea camelorum’ may have 
originated. At least it is attributed to Matthaeus Platearius 
(about the middle of the 12th century) in the various editions of 
the Ortus Sanitatis,t although it may, of course, be much older, 
as Galenus had already connected the ‘ Schoenanthus’ with the 
camel. In the Ortus Sanitatis we also find the first figure 
intended to represent the ‘Schoenanthus’ or ‘Squinanthus,’ as it is 
called there. It is so conventionalised as to be unrecognisable. From 
Brunfels} (1536 A.D.), onward it is a standing article in all the 
herbals of the 16th and 17th centuries, and is the subject of some- 
times elaborate discussions in the commentaries on Dioscorides, 
Plinius, and Theophrastus. It was very frequently figured in those 
works, the figures being drawn from the mostly barren leaf-tufts 
as they reached Hurope. Sometimes inflorescences more or 
less conventionalised were added. One of the earliest of those 
figures, by Lobel§ (1576 A.D.), is among the best. A very good 
description of the drug was given by Joh. Bauhin (1658 A.D.).| 
Finally in 1692 we have Plukenet’s{ description and figure, 
which I have mentioned on p. 303. Both are indifferent ; 
but they are supported by Plukenet’s original specimen which 
still exists in his herbarium at the British Museum, and is 
the typical ‘Schoenanthus’ of the old herbalists. On this, and 
on this alone, Linnaeus based the ‘ Lagurus’ of his Materia 
Medica, which is—if I may say so—the backbone of the Andro- 
pogon Schoenanthus of the ‘Species Plantarum.’ To finish my 
account of the ‘Herba Schoenanthi, I now turn once more to 
the East. We have seen that the Nabataean Schoenanthus was, in 
the times of Dioscorides and Plinius, more valued than any other, 
and I have already pointed out that it was called Nabataean more 
_ likely because it came via Nabataea than on account of its growing 
there. In connection with this, it is interesting to note that 
according to Meyer,** Qiitsami’s “ Book of Nabataean Agriculture ” 
actually enumerates ‘Idshir’ (Izkhir, the Arabic name of 
Schoenanthus, qua drug), but with the epithets ‘ Babylonian’ . 
~ and ‘that of Hedjas,’ and not as Nabataean. Meyer quotes from 
Ibn Alawwam’s ‘De Agricultura,’ who in turn quotes largely 
* Dioscorides, l.c., p. 31. 
+ Ortus Sanitatis, Matth. Sylvatici (1511), cap. eccclii. 
+ Brunfels, Nov. Herb., vol. ii. (1536), p. 100. 
§ Lobelius, Stirp. Hist. (1576), p. 42. : 
|| J. Bauhinus, Theatr. Bot. (1658), p. 165. 
q Plukenet, Phytogr., tab. 190, fig. 1. 
** Meyer, Gesch. d. Botanik, vol. iii., p. 61. 
