80 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. 



which, in the process of collecting gold from the 

 sands of rivers, is well adapted, he says, for arrest- 

 ing any pieces of the metal that may be carried 

 away during the washing, so that it was a common 

 practice to place a layer of it at the bottom of the 

 trenches along which the water was made to flow. 

 But it would seem that the early botanists, in iden- 

 tifying this plant with the Furze of the moderns, 

 as they have done by assigning that name to the 

 latter plant, have been somewhat precipitate. 



Dumolin contends, that the Ulex of the moderns 

 was designated in ancient Greece by the term 



Theophrastus h describes a plant which he calls 

 ^Kopirios, from the irritating character of the wound 

 produced by its thorns entering the flesh, as being, 

 except the wild Asparagus, the only one known 

 which is entirely destitute of leaves, it being com- 

 posed of thorns, the points of which are at first 

 white, and afterwards become a little red. It con- 

 tinues in flower, he says, till after the autumnal 

 equinox, and is destitute of smell. 



This plant Dumolin identifies with the acnraXaOos 

 of Theocritus. 



But in the first place, it seems by no means 

 likely that the o-Kopwlos was our Furze, since this 

 does not occur in Sicily, whilst some of the species 

 of Spartium are provided with long and much more 

 formidable thorns. 



Secondly, I do not find that Theophrastus iden- 



h Lib. i. 3. 



