162 
NAT. ORDER. — OLEINE^. 
first knowledge we have of this curious plant is from Baron Jacquin, 
who exhibited dried specimens of it from Siebenburgfen, and since its 
discovery was due to "Frau Baronin von Josika, g-ebohren Grafin 
Czaki." He named it in compliment to that disting-uished lady, and 
g^ave it a specific character. In another part of the same work, we 
find that not only is the present species a native of Germany, but that 
the common Lilac, Syringa vulgaris^ which has hitherto been con- 
sidered almost exclusively of Persian origin, as stated by Dr. Heuffel, 
to adorn with its copious blossoms the inaccessible chalky precipices 
of the Cverna Valley, and Mount Domag-lett in Hung^aiy. 
Syring'a is from the Greek work syrinx^ a pipe. The branches 
are long- and straig'ht, and are filled with medulla ; hence the old name 
of the lilac, pipe-tree. Linnaeus places it among poetical names. The 
story of the nymph Syrinx, in Ovid, is well known. The English 
name of the genus is from lilac or lilag, the Persian word for flower. 
Syringa vulgaris. Common Lilac. This is a very common shrub 
which grows to the height of eighteen or twenty feet in good ground, 
and divides into many branches ; those of the white sort grow more 
erect than the blue ; and the purple or Scotch Lilac has its branches 
yet more diffused ; the branches of the white covered with a smooth 
bark of a gray color ; in the other two it is darker ; the leaves of the 
white are of a brighter green — they are heart-shaped in all, nearly five 
inches long, and three and a half broad near the base, placed opposite, 
on foot-stalks about an inch and a half in length ; the buds of the fu- 
ture shoots, which are very turgid before the leaves fall, are of a very 
bright green in the white sort, but those of the other two are dark 
green ; the flowers are always produced at the ends of the shoots of 
the former year, and below the flowers, other shoots come out to suc- 
ceed them — as that part upon which the flowers stand decays down 
to the shoots, below every winter. There are generally two bunches or 
panicles of flowers joined at the end of each shoot; those of the blue are 
the smallest — flowers are also smaller, and placed thinner than either of 
the others ; the bunches on the white are larger, but those of the 
