iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 105 



term, and the corresponding one, Nrjpiov or 'Po<5o- 

 SevSpov of Dioscorides, are identified by Sibthorp 

 with . the Nerium oleander, a very common shrub 

 in Greece, as well as in most parts of the south 

 of Europe, so that Pliny must have confounded 

 these two plants. It has been generally supposed 

 that the one which rendered the honey of Pontus 

 noxious was the Rhododendron ponticum ; this, how- 

 ever, is entirely harmless, and the shrub really 

 intended must have been the Azalea pontica, the 

 Chamcerhododendros of Tournefort c , which has the 

 reputation at present of rendering honey narcotic, 

 and of poisoning the goats, swine, and sheep that 

 browze upon its leaves d . 



VACCINIUM. 



I have alluded in my "Roman Husbandry 6 " to 

 the probability that the Vaccinium of the ancients 

 was not the same plant as the Bilberry, or the 

 Vaccinium myrtillus, of the present day, but the 

 Hyacinth. Fee combats this opinion f , but is 

 driven to suppose that the Greeks recognised two 

 Hyacinths, the first red, the Lilium martagon of L. ; 

 the second black, which was the Vaccinium myr- 

 tillus. The latter, however, does not grow in watery 

 places, which Pliny says is the case with the Vac- 

 cinium. Theophrastus seems to refer to the Bil- 

 berry g , under the name of a^ireXos rfj$ 'Idrjs, but 



c Voyage an Levant, vol. ii. p. 226. d See also " Bot. Magazine," 

 p. 433. e p. 266. l Fl. Virg. ' H. PI. iii. 17. 



