[2078] Or “black violet,” mentioned by Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. vi. c. 7. Pliny may probably mean the purple violet, mentioned by him in c. 14 of this Book. “Melanthium” is another reading.
[2079] Not improbably the same as the “holochrysos,” mentioned in c. 24 of this Book.
[2080] “Meadow” anemone.
[2081] “The little sword.” See c. [67] of this Book.
[2082] There have been conflicting opinions as to the identification of the hyacinth of the ancients. Linnæus identifies it with the Delphinium Ajacis: Sprengel and Salmasius with the Gladiolus communis: Sibthorp with the Gladiolus communis triphyllos: Dodonæus and Porta the Lilium bulbiferum: and Martyn and Fée the Lilium Martagon of Linnæus, the Turk’s-cap lily. From what Pliny says in cc. 39 and 97 of this Book, and in B. xxv. c. 80, it is pretty clear that under the name of hyacinth he has confused the characteristics of two different plants. The hyacinth, too, of Dioscorides, B. iii. c. 5, is a different plant, Fée remarks, being the Hyacinthus comosus of modern botanists.
[2083] The Greek ΑΙ, “Alas!” which the ancients fancied they saw impressed on the leaves.
[2084] See Ovid’s Met. B. x. l. 162-220.
[2085] See Ovid’s Met. B. xiii. l. 397, et seq.
[2086] “Unsullied by fire.”
[2087] Or “light” flower: the Agrostemma coronaria of Linnæus.