THE WAYFARING-TREE 91 



have one, two, or three chambers. Each chamber 

 contains an ovule ; but only one becomes a seed. 



The origin of the name is obscure. When, in his 

 first Eclogue, Virgil writes — 



" Quantum lenta solent inter viburna oupressi " — 



Messrs. Lonsdale and Lee, ingeniously but without 

 much authority, translate " as cypresses are wont 

 to tower among the bending osiers." The sense evi- 

 dently requires some flexible wood, and Viburnum 

 has been connected with the verb vieo, I bend ; whilst 

 it is also pointed out that, though Linnaeus trans- 

 ferred the name Lentd'go to a North American 

 species of Viburnum with more pliant branches, 

 the Italian name Lentaggine applies to our Wayfaring- 

 tree (Viburnum Lantana L). Parkinson -yv^rites : 



" Although the signification of Viiuimiim doth properly entend 

 the young twigge or shoote from the roote of a tree, yet it is not 

 improbable that Virgil in citing these verses should meane this tree 

 also, called Viburnum, (that it might hold his comparison to the 

 Cypresse, of the meanenes of other Cities unto the statelines 

 of Some) as diyers learned men think, which are &eaner, Matthiolus, 

 Camerarius, Ihiranies and I/ugdimensis, &c., and because that the 

 Italians in their vulgar tongue, call it Lantana (r -od lenti sunt rami). 

 . . . Ruellius saith he found it vrithout Paris, which the Country people 

 called Blanche putain, and both he and Zoiel doe call it Viorna 

 Gallorum, as peradventure derived from Viburnum, and yet they 

 call another ramping bush Viorna also, which I have shewed you 

 before among the clamberers, to be the Atragene of Theophrastus, 

 unlesse the French have two Viorna!), which is doubtfall. . . . The 

 Italians, as I said, call it Lantana, and Viliumo, the French Vivrne, 

 as Ruellius saith, and SardeoM aXso, from the French word Hard, 

 which signi-fieth a band or rope." 



The other French Viorna is the wild Clematis, the 

 modem " Viorne des -pauvres." 



