File:Lectures on Roman husbandry, delivered before the University of Oxford; comprehending such an account of the system of agriculture, the treatment of domestic animals, the horticulture &c., pursued in (14758388176).jpg

Identifier: lecturesonromanh00unse (find matches)
Title: Lectures on Roman husbandry, delivered before the University of Oxford; comprehending such an account of the system of agriculture, the treatment of domestic animals, the horticulture &c., pursued in ancient times, as may be collected from the Scriptores rei rusticae, the Georgics of Virgil, and other classical authorities, with notices of the plants mentioned in Columella and Virgil;
Year: 1857 (1850s)
Authors: Daubeny, Charles,1795-1867
Subjects: Agriculture Agriculture
Publisher: Oxford, Printed by J. Wright (etc.)
Contributing Library: Yale University, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons and Yale University, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library

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Text Appearing Before Image:
Upon the whole, I think it must be concluded,
that the term vdnivOos was in general applied to
some plant of the lily tribe; but that the poets
confounded with this the larkspur, which has
upon it the markings alluded to; and that the
name Hyacinth was given in the first instance to
the plant which most distinctly exhibited them.
9. Leo. This plant, described by Columella as
" hiantis saeva Leonis
Ora feri " (x. 99.)
puzzles us the more, as it does not occur in any
other Latin writer. Leontice leontopetalum is the
plant which Sibthorp identifies with the Xeovro-
ireTakov of Dioscorides °; but Columella's de-
scription of leo implies a ringent plant like the
snapdragon, or, as Billerbeck will have it, the
orobanche.
It is far more probable, however, that a snap-
dragon, than an orobanche, should have been in-

¹¹ Osservazioni sulla Flora Virgiliana. Napoli, 1826.
⁰ The engraving in the Vienna edition is like nothing in na-
ture, but certainly differs more widely from a ringent plant, than
from a regular monopetalous one.

Plate, XIII.

Text Appearing After Image:


From a drawing of the U. M.S. of Diose.
Lect. VII.] ROMAN HUSBANDRY. 239

troduced into a Roman garden, and the term leo
may have been as naturally applied to this flower
by the Romans, as the corresponding one löwen-
maul (lions mouth) is in the German, or as snap-
dragon is in English.
10. Ligustrum,—the nature of this plant has
been always a subject of much doubt, especially
in the instance before us, where Columella speaks
of it as black:
" Fer calathis violam : et nigro permixta ligustro
Balsama : (x. 300.)
whereas Virgil and others call it white;
" Alba ligustra. "
The common privet might apply to both de-
scriptions; for its flowers are white, whilst its
berries are black: but Dumoulin contends, with
some reason, that it was a convolvulus.
According to him, the ligustrum of the poets
must have been a twining plant, whence indeed
its name is derived (ligustrum, from ligo, to bind):
it is also an herbaceous plant, and not a tree or
shrub; and may be inferred to be monopetalous,
from the line in Ovid:
Candidior nivei folio, Galatea ligustri

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