18 DICTIONARY OF POPULAR NAMES ANTIDOTE 



tubes, graduated to mark the time. Its fruit is considered 

 poisonous. I. floridanun, an evergreen slirub allied to the 

 preceding, is a native of Florida, and other Southern States ; it 

 possesses also aromatic properties, but the leaves are said to be 

 poisonous, and on that account it is named Poison Bay. 



Antidote Cocoon, a name in Jamaica for Feuillma cordvfolia, 

 a climber of the Gourd family (Cucurbitacese). It is a native 

 of Jamaica, and ascends to the top of the highest trees ; its stem 

 is permanent, and clings to the trees by tendrils. It has palmate 

 leaves ; the fruit is globular, 4 or 5 inches in diameter, and con- 

 tains flattened round seeds, about 2 inches across, which are used 

 for the cure of snake-bites. An oil is also expressed from them, 

 but more abundantly from an allied species, native of Peru. 



Apple {Pyrus Malus), a tree the type of the Apple family 

 (Pomacese). It is recorded to grow wild in Western Upper 

 India, the regions of the Caucasus, Armenia, and some parts of 

 Europe, and as carbonised apples have been found in the deposit 

 remains of the prehistoric lake -cities of Switzerland, it is 

 evident that they were then used as food ; it is presumed that 

 they were the fruit of the wild apple tree that we term Crabs. 

 Greek and Eoman history tells us that the apple tree was early 

 known in these countries, and that it was introduced into Rome 

 in the time of Appius Claudius (449 B c.) According to Pliny 

 the younger, who flourished during the end of the first and the 

 beginning of the second centuries, it was grown in orchards ; he 

 speaks of twenty-two distinct kinds under the names of 

 Claudians, Pompeians, etc. We learn further that the art of 

 grafting was then practised, as he mentions crabs as small and 

 sour ; it shows that good apples were then cultivated at Eome, 

 the sorts being known by the general name of '^Pomiim Malum." 



It is supposed that apple trees were early introduced into 

 Britain by the Eomans, but it is not very clear how and when 

 the fruit received the name of Apple. Dr. Prior, in his Deriva- 

 tion of Names of British Plants^ considers Apple to be an Anglo- 

 Saxon word, and to have come from the Worse (old Danish) 

 -Ap^pel, supposed to have been derived from a more ancient 



