in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 67 



The term ' AXvvo-ov indeed is applied to some 

 plant or other by Dioscorides, and the old botanists 

 have chosen to adopt the same for a genus of 

 which four suffruticose species are noticed in 

 Greece. 



But the modern Alyssum cannot be shewn with 

 any degree of probability to correspond with the 

 ' AXvcraov of the Greeks. 



Cheiranthus cheiri, indeed, may have been desig- 

 nated by the term XevKoiov d , but Sibthorp regards 

 the C. tricuspidatus as better entitled to that name, 

 especially considering its resemblance to the draw- 

 ing of XtvKoiov attached to the Vienna MS. 



CAPPARIS. 



I may refer to my " Lectures on Roman Hus- 

 bandry e " for some remarks on this plant, which 

 went amongst the ancients by the same name 

 which is at present applied to it. Royle, however, 

 in a Paper read before the Asiatic Society, 1844, 

 contends that it may be identified with the Hyssop 

 of Scripture. Two species are enumerated by Sib- 

 thorp as indigenous in Greece. 



CISTUS. 



Eight species of Cistus, or Rock-Rose, including 

 two of Helianthemum, are mentioned by Manetti 

 as existing in Italy, and no less than twenty -one 

 shrubby species by Sibthorp in Greece/ 1 Of these, 

 the Cistus creticus, common in the Islands of the 



d See " Roman Husbandry," p. 240. e p. 253. 



F2 



