SCABIO'SA WEBBIA'NA. 
webb’s scabious. 
Class. 
TETRANDRIA. 
Order. 
MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Older. 
DIPSACE*. 
Native of 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration. 
Introduced 
Phrygia. 
6 inches. 
July. 
Perennial. 
in 1818. 
No. 796. 
It is generally admitted, amongst botanists, that 
the word Scabiosa arose out of scabies, on account 
of some one or more of this species having been 
used in the cure of cutaneous disorders. 
Whether our present subject, which was collected 
on Mount Ida, by, we believe, Mr. Philip Barker 
Webb, ever came under the cognizance of the 
Greek physicians is doubtful ; it is probable that it 
never did, for the knowledge of the virtues of 
Scabious is not obtained from those Grecian store- 
houses of herbal wisdom — Theophrastus and Dios- 
corides, but, from comparatively modern writers. 
Doctor William Turner, who was, as Poulteney 
says, the earliest writer among us, that discovered 
learning and critical judgment in the knowledge of 
plants, classes the Scabious in the third part of his 
Herbal “Wherein are conteined the herbes, trees, 
rootes, and fruytes, whereof is no mention made of 
Dioscorides, Galene, Plinye, and other olde Au- 
thores.” He says of it, alluding to the British 
species, “ It hath the name of Scabbes, is good 
against scabbes and breking out of y e skin, whe- 
ther it be take in w‘ y e broth wherein it is sodden 
Don’s Syst. Bot. 3, 694. 
