in.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 71 



Columella also mentions that this variety of 

 Vine was cultivated in several parts of Italy as 

 well as of Greece ; and Mr. Hogg p states, that it 

 grows abundantly in the island of Lipari, where 

 it is called Passolina. 



The engraving in the Vienna edition of Dios- 

 corides, will probably be considered as bearing 

 more resemblance to the Currant Vine, than to the 

 ordinary one; and Dioscorides makes mention of 

 two varieties, one probably the common Vitis vini- 

 fera in its wild state, the other the Vitis labrusca, 

 with a woolly leaf, the parent, as it would seem, 

 of the Currant or Corinthian Grape. 



I may add that, according to Count Odart q , one 

 variety of Vine, now called Pinceau, was known 

 so long ago as 1 394 ; another planted in Andalusia 

 by the Moors still retains its characters ; and that 

 the Cornichon of Paris was described six centuries 

 ago by an Arabian writer under the name of Ladies' 

 Finger. It may be alleged, in opposition to what 

 I have stated in page 2, that specimens of a Vine 

 have been discovered in the Tuffs, near Montpellier, 

 (see Planchon's late Memoir on that subject), and 

 likewise in the brown coal of Westphalia ; but 

 whether these belong to the same species as our 

 cultivated Vine does not appear. That the latter 

 should have been so, is extremely improbable. 



p Observations on some of the Classical Plants of Sicily, Hooker's 

 Botanical Journal, 1834. 



i Ampelographie Universelle, Paris, 1840. 



