CXCI.— THE SWEET CICELY. 
Myrrhis Odorata Scopoli. 
I N spite of the delicate division of their leaves, which are often of a cheerful 
shade of green and form an attractive background to the wealth of white disks 
of blossom, the Umbellifera cannot be termed a popular group of plants. Their 
individual flowers are small : they do not display any variety of gay hues ; and 
they are very generally included under the indiscriminate condemnation of 
l< the hemlock rank 
Growing on the weedy bank." 
As we have previously remarked, however, the number of popular names borne by 
a species is a good criterion as to its degree of general recognition and appreciation, 
though this may be based on utilitarian rather than aesthetic considerations. Tried 
by this standard, Sweet Cicely is apparently one of the most appreciated species in 
the Family. 
Vegetable perfumes are among the most ancient uses of plants, and it would 
seem that from an early period cheaper home-grown substitutes were found for 
the costly articles of foreign commerce. At all events, there is no question as to 
the etymological connection in ancient Greece between pvppa, murrha , myrrh, 
the fragrant resinous exudation of various species of the genus Commiphora or 
Balsamodendron , mostly natives of Somaliland ; /xJpros, murtos , the myrtle, a 
fragrant-leaved shrub native to Western Asia, though naturalised at an early period 
in Europe ; and pvppU, murrhis , the name employed by Dioscorides apparently for 
the plant of which we are now writing. Though very different in habit, and almost 
in every detail of structure, so that they belong to three distinct Families, these three 
plants are all fragrant. The last of the three was, in fact, designated by Rivinus in 
1699 by the generic name Odorata , so that, when described by Scopoli in his “ Flora 
Carniolica ” in 1772 under the genus Myrrhis , the specific name Odorata was retained 
with an initial capital, because it had been previously generic. At the same time, 
Scopoli’s name takes precedence of that given by Rivinus, or of the Cerefolium used 
by Gerard, as being post-Li nnaean, and of Linne’s own Scandix odorata , because this 
plant is well entitled to be ranked in a genus distinct from that which includes 
Venus’s Comb. 
Although to most people the name Cicely probably suggests a familiar abbrevia- 
tion of the female name Cecilia, it is in point of fact merely a phonetic spelling of 
the pure Greek name creVeXi, seseli, used by Dioscorides for various Umbellifer<e , 
and appropriated by Linne to an allied genus. There is so much aromatic 
fragrance about the whole plant that such names as Sweets and Sweet Humlock 
are easily understood. As the plant is not wild in southern England or Ireland 
and doubtfully so in the Lowlands of Scotland, it is only natural that almost all its 
popular names belong to the mountainous counties of northern England, where 
