1865.] The Trees and Shrubs of the Ancients. 551 



THE TBEES AND SHBUBS OF THE ANCIENTS. 



De. Daubeny, the distinguished Professor of Botany at Oxford, has 

 just published an essay, on ' The Trees and Shrubs of the Ancients,' 

 as a supplement to his valuable work on ' Eoman Husbandry.' * 



In the preface, he says : — " The late Professor Sibthorp, in found- 

 ing a chair of Sural Economy to be attached to that of Botany 

 already existing in the University of Oxford, directed that the holder 

 of that office should deliver, each Term, a lecture on some one of the 

 subjects which the Professorship in question might be regarded as 

 embracing. In conformity with this regulation, I have, besides 

 placing before my hearers from time to time the newest views on the 

 theory of agriculture which modern science had developed, given 

 occasionally such sketches of the husbandry of the ancients as could 

 be gathered from the Scriptores Bei Busticas, whose writings have 

 come down to us. The latter have since been embodied in a work 

 published by me in 1857, entitled ' Lectures on Boman Husbandry,' 

 in which I presented ' An Account of the System of Agriculture, of 

 the Treatment of Domestic Animals, and of the Horticulture pursued 

 in Ancient Times,' concluding with notices ' Of the Plants men- 

 tioned in Columella and Virgil.' To this publication, the present 

 lectures may be regarded as supplementary, containing, as they do, a 

 summary of the best information I have been able to collect as to the 

 trees and shrubs really intended by those described or noticed in the 

 principal Greek and Boman writers. 



In writing the work, the author has availed himself of Sibthorp's 

 ' Flora Graeca,' Pliny's works, Sprengel's ' Historia Bei Herbariaa,' 

 Fee's 'Flore de Theocrite,' and 'Flore de Virgile,' J. B. Du Molin's 

 ' Flore Poetique Ancienne,' Billerbeck's ' Flora Classica,' Dierbach's 

 ' Flora Apiciana,' Fraas' ' Synopsis Plantarum Floras Classics,' and 

 Lenz, ' Botanik der Alten Griechen und Bonier.' 



The book contains an identification of a greater number of Greek 

 and Boman plants than is contained in any former English publica- 

 tion, and is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the Classical 

 Flora. He first treats of the trees producing fruit, acorns and resin. 

 Many of the trees well adapted for the climate of Italy are traced, 

 according to Pliny, to a foreign source. Amongst fruit trees, we are 

 assured that the cherry, the peach, the quince, the damson, the jujube, 

 the pomegranate, the apricot, the olive, and perhaps the vine were of 

 foreign origin. The common fig was derived from Syria, and the 

 sycamore fig from Egypt. Other fruits appear, like domestic animals, 

 to have followed man in his migration. The orange was not intro- 

 duced into Italy until the ninth century after Christ. The golden 

 apples of the Hesperides, supposed to be oranges, seem rather to have 

 been a variety of apple. The date palm had been introduced into 



* ' Essay on the Trees and Shrubs of the Ancients ; being the substance of 

 Four Lectures delivered before the University of Oxford, intended to be supple- 

 mentary to those on "Eoman Husbandry" already published.' By C. Daubeny, 

 M.D., F.E.S., Professor of Botany and Kural Economy in the University of Oxford, 

 Oxford and London : John Henry, and James Parker. 8vo. 1865. pp. 152. - 



