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 löwenmaul (lion's mouth) is in the German, or as snapdragon 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 descriptions; 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." Folium being used to signify a petal. Servius moreover says, that "the ligustrum of Virgil is thought by some to be a convolvulus."

On the other hand, the ligustrum of Pliny is described as being a tree, so that we must suppose two distinct plants to have been designed by the one, and by the other.

Bating this difficulty, the interpretation of Du Molin has the advantage of enabling us to explain the epithet black given to ligustrum by Columella; for it is easier to find a dark convolvulus than a dark-flowered privet.

Lastly, we have the leucojum, which Columella designates as white, (candida leucoja,) and which, from its Greek etymology, may be regarded as synonymous to ov Xevкóv. But this leaves us as much in the dark as before; for what, after all, is meant by a white violet?

Now in Dioscorides, λευκόϊον, Οι ἴον λευκόν, may be viewed as a generic name for various species of cheiranthus or wall-flower, if we admit Sibthorp's authority, which is confirmed by the plate of Neukóïov in the V. MS.; and of this, two species, C. cheiri and C. incanus, are cultivated in gardens in Greece at the present day.

In the V. MS. is a drawing of Xevкóïov daλáσσiovP, which bears a near resemblance to cheiranthus cuspidatus (Fl. Gr. t. 639); and hesperis matronalis, a cruciform plant, not very unlike a wallflower, is called dame's violet at the present day.

Thus the entire catalogue of ornamental flowers given in Columella would amount only to about eleven; and if we take into account such as are mentioned by Virgil, it will be found, that after deducting such ornamental trees as, laurus, the bay laurel; myrtus, the myrtle; myrica, probaP See plate annexed.