OEIGIN AND HISTORY OF OUR GARDEN VEGETABLES. 121 



With regard to the word Elaphohoscum used by both Dioscorides 

 and Phny, it means "stag's food," for it was supposed to be eaten by 

 them as an antidote to snake-bites. It is difficult to determine what 

 Pliny meant by it, but he compared the foliage to that of Olusatru7n, 

 our "Alexanders," which somew^hat resembles that of the parsnip ; 

 moreover, the supposed medicinal virtues w^ere more or less like those 

 of the parsnip. Dioscorides says the root is " white, sweet, and 

 edible." Matthiolus, in his Commentary on Dioscorides, figures it as 

 the wild parsnip, called Pastinaca erratica. It was called " Baucia " 

 by the herbalists of the sixteenth century. 



There are several vocabularies of plants recorded in the Middle 

 Ages,'^^ in which the plants under consicleration occur. Thus, Pastinaca 

 was called " Feldmora, " and Cariota w^as " Waldmora " in the tenth 

 century. These Anglo-Saxon words mean " plain or field root." In 

 the fourteenth century Daucus referred to the D. creticus, but it was 

 also a synonym for Pastinaca, " Anglice, skirwhite " (15th century). 

 W. Turner, in his book called " The Names of Herbes " (1548), thus 

 writes : " Pastinaca is called in Greek Staphilinos, in englishe a Carot, 

 in duche, pasteney, in frenche, cariottes. Carettes growe in al countries 

 in plentie. " 



Under the name Sisaron, he writes, " Sisaron sine siser, is called 

 in Englishe a Persnepe. . . . Fuchsius rekoneth that our skyrwort or 

 skywrit is a kind of siser. Persenepes and skirwortes are commune in 

 Englande." 



Daucus he regards as " Pastinaca sylvestris, in english wild carot." 



With regard to Daucus, it occurs as Daucos (Greek) in Theophrastus 

 (4th century b.c.) and Daucus in Pliny. Both he and Dioscorides 

 refer to a medicinal plant in Crete, but not the true carrot. Theo- 

 phrastus, how^ever, has D. niger, which has been recognized as 

 the carrot by sixteenth-century writers, and known to herbalists as 



D. ofjicinarum or Carotta. Several writers identify it as having white 

 flowers with a central purple one in the umbel, as is almost always 

 the case, while the flowers of the parsnip are yellow. 



Dodoens, in his " History of Plants," consisting of plates (1559), 

 figures Staphyli7ius sylvestris, the wild carrot, Elafl^ohoscum and 



E. sylvestre as the wild parsnip, called Baucia or skirwit in the shops. 

 By the end of the sixteenth century these plants became quite dis- 

 tinct, for Gerard, in his " Herball " (1597), describes them as Pastinaca 

 htifolia, sativa, et sylvestris, the garden and wild parsnip. Pastinaca 

 tenuifolia, sativa et sylvestris, the yellow carrot, cultivated and wild. 



It appears to have been the physician Galen (2nd century a.d.) 

 who added the name Daucus to distinguish the carrot, Daucus 

 Pastinaca. Hence Daucus came to be the officinal name of herbalists 

 in the sixteenth century, and finally was adopted with Carota by Lin- 

 naeus in the eighteenth century, by which name it is now known. As 

 stated above, the word Carota appears to have been first used by Apicius 

 Coelius, a writer on cookery, about 230 a.d. 



* English Plant Names, by T. Earle. 



