iv.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 109 



in medicinal efficacy. The smaller Folium may be 

 Teucrium montanum ; the larger one T.polium. 



I have, however, already pointed out that Du- 

 molin maintains that the floAjoz/ of the Greeks, 

 and the Folium alluded to by Pliny, was the Santo- 

 Una chamcecyparissus of modern botanists. 



PERIPLOCA. 



Periploca grceca is a native of Bithynia and 

 Mount Athos, and occurs also in Italy, but it was 

 probably confounded with other climbing plants 

 Clematis, Bryony, &c. by the ancient writers, as 

 there are no remarkable qualities by which their 

 attention would be directed towards it. 



SOLANUM. 



Of the three species of Nightshade observed by 

 Sibthorp in Greece, the S. dulcamara is a climber, 

 S. nigrum an annual, and the third, S. sodomeum, 

 a shrub. The first and second are common also 

 in Italy. 



S. sodomeum, found by Sibthorp in Sicily, of 

 which a splendid figure is given in the Flora Grceca, 

 is a native of Africa and Syria. It obtained its 

 name from being regarded as the plant which 

 Hasselquist had identified with that bearing the 

 famous apples of Sodom, described by Josephus and 

 by Tacitus as fair to the eye, but when plucked, 

 dissolving into dust and ashes r . 



r In the Book of Wisdom, x. 7, we read, " Of whose wickedness 

 even in this day the waste land that smoketh is a testimony, and 

 plants bearing fruit that never came to ripeness." 



