Book III OF RABIES 269

tainly has not round leaves, nor does it agree with the descrip—
tion of Dioscurides. When he discusses madder, he describes
both kinds, and then goes on to describe alyssum separately.
Hence some authorities claim that alyssum is the plant called
by herbalists lilialis, not what Ruellius calls lilialis, but another
plant with a white flower; but this again has not round leaves,
but oblong, ending in a sharp point. Again, some think that
it is the plant called asperula,^?9 slightly smaller than aparine,
with rounder leaves set in a circle. Paul and Aetius have still
further increased the difficulty, for in discussing alyssum they
agree in stating that it is syderitis heraclea.  Galen also, in the
8Second Book of his work 'On Antidotes', when describing alys—
sum, apparently means the sort of syderitis that is called hera—
clea and by us, commonly, 'sclarea?. Ruellius, in my opinion,
is much mistaken in thinking that our sclarea is not syderitis
heraclea but hormin,"9*^ but I have discussed this point at
length elsewhere.'3' In the writings of the later Greeks, the
word alyssum is apparently used in a different sense from that
of Dioscurides, who describes heraclea and alyssum separately.
Moreover the leaves of syderitis are not round, and its seed is
not wide and flat, but round. But perhaps one may say that
Dioscurides was trying to describe some special variety of
heraclea. For there are several varieties of syderitis,"3? one a
garden variety with a sweet smell, called by us St. John's wort,
which has a larger stalk and leaves than the other varieties. A
second variety grows in meadows and is properly called sclarea.
Its leaves are rough, oblong, resembling those of sage; its stalk
is square, and at intervals around it in a circle are set verticilli,
and on these are purple flowers inclining to blue, sickle—shaped
like an eagle!s beak, as are also the flowers of the cultivated
variety. A third variety grows in woods and has pale whitish
flowers, but its verticilli and leaves are as described above.
Finally there is & mountain variety of syderitis, which on the
whole is like the meadow kind, except that it has round leaves
and smaller verticilli, on which, when the blossom has fallen,
are two seeds together in a husk, like a small shield.  Women
sow this in their gardens and call it betony, though that is not
its right name. This then is perhaps the plant which Dioscurides
first, and later Galen and others, mean by alyssum, which is
really a sort of syderitis, though it is not the kind called by
Dioscurides simply heraclea, and which I have called meadow