HI.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 77 



Pliny speaks of the Rhamnus as a kind of 

 bramble (Rubus) , stating tbat they have both thorns 

 which are not hooked, and that one is dark- 

 coloured, the other whiter. The medicament called 

 Lyciwn, he says, may be extracted from either 

 plant. 



Moreover, the very etymology of the word 'Pa/x,- 

 vos favours the idea that it may have been used to 

 signify any kind of bushy shrub, as it is evidently 

 an abbreviation of pdSafjii>o?, a young branch or 

 sprout. 



Upon the whole, then, it seems probable, as 

 Dumolin has suggested, that the 'Pa/zi/oy of the 

 Greeks was often used, at least by the poets, for 

 the Hawthorn of the present day, although it must 

 be confessed, that the prose writers, such as Theo- 

 phrastus and Dioscorides, speak of the Rhamnus 

 and the Oxyacantha as distinct. In the old Apo- 

 logue, in the 9th chapter of Judges, of the trees 

 choosing a king, the Septuagint translates the 

 word which we render bramble by 'PdfjLvos. 



There are no drawings of this plant in the 

 Vienna MS. of Dioscorides. 



PlSTACIA. 



Even though we were to admit Pliny's authority 

 for the foreign origin of the Pistachio-nut, Pistacia 

 vera, which a fact stated further on would lead 

 one to dispute, other plants belonging to the natural 



c Lib. xxiy. c. 76. 



