PLANTS OF GREECE. 



247 



60. Atropa Mandragora, Mavfyayoupu, called also yopyoyotvi. Used 

 for its supposed aphrodisiac qualities. 



61. Viscum Album, MsXXa. This grows on the Silver fir on Mount 

 Parnes. It is not the plant from which they at present make bird- 

 lime, but from the Loranthus Europaeus, which is called o£oV, and 

 grows in the mountains of Euboea, and at Athos. 



62. Eryngium Campestre, a^aV^ to fioravt. The bruised root 

 is applied by the Athenian shepherds to cure their asses when bitten 

 by venomous serpents. The following verses are made on this 

 plant : 



I a.yaTTy\i; to {jotc&vi 



Kj-noioq to tog;, kui aev to 7riot,vei t 



Ttjv a.yiX7rrjVy oVou e^;e<, y^avsi. 



63. Papaver Rhceas, TraTrcn^owix. A syrup is drawn in Zante from 

 the flowers, and an infusion of them taken as a pectoral. In Cyprus 

 it is called weiwU from the red colour of the flower resembling a 

 cock's crest ; it is worn by the Greek girls as an ornament to their 

 head-dress. Papaver somniferum is called at Constantinople pdKav; 

 the heads of it are bruised and drank in decoction for coughs. 



Notes by the Editor. 



60. The same superstitious uses are now attributed to this plant as to the mandragora 

 of the ancients. Mandragora? putatur vis inesse amorem conciliandi. Vossius de Idol, 

 lib. v. 



" I entered into conversation," says Dr. Hume in one of his journals, " with a Russian, 

 who had studied medicine at Padua, and was now settled at Limosol in Cyprus. In giving 

 me an account of the curiosities which he possessed he mentioned to me a root, in some 

 degree resembling the human body, for at one end it was forked, and had a knob at the 

 other, which represented the head, with two sprouts immediately below it for the arms. 

 This wonderful root he had dug up, he said, in the Holy Land with no little risque, for 

 the instant it appeared above the ground it killed two dogs, and would have killed him 

 also had he not been under the influence of magic." It is evident that the Russian doctor 

 was repeating some of the absurd stories that have been circulated from very early times 

 respecting the anthropomorphic character of the mandragora, and its supposed noxious 

 properties. In Lambecius Bib. Vin. lib. ii. torn. 2. is an engraving from a MS. of Dios- 

 corides ; a dog, having pulled up a root of mandragora, is represented as dying. Under 

 the print are these words, xvwv avacrn-aSv tov MavSpxyopuv, enur, ctiroQvyvxwv. See also in 

 Josephus, lib. vii. b. 3. the account of the root Baara. 



