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From these lines it is plain that the chelidonium is a different flower from the anemone (for some people have called them the same). But Theophrastus says that there are some plants, the flowers of which constantly follow the stars, such as the one called the heliotrope, and the chelidonium; and this last plant is named so from its coming into bloom at the same time as the swallows arrive. There is also a flower spoken of under the name of ambrosia by Carystius, in his Historical Commentaries, where he says—“Nicander says that the plant named ambrosia grows at Cos, on the head of the statue of Alexander.” But I have already spoken of it, and mentioned that some people give this name to the lily. And Timachidas, in the fourth book of his banquet, speaks also of a flower called theseum,—
The soft theseum, like the apple blossom,
The sacred blossom of Leucerea,1
Which the fair goddess loves above all others.
And he says that the garland of Ariadne was made of this flower.

Pherecrates also, or whoever the poet was who wrote the play of the Persians, mentions some flowers as fit for garlands, and says—

O you who sigh like mallows soft,
Whose breath like hyacinths smells,
Who like the melilotus speak,
And smile as doth the rose,
Whose kisses are as marjoram sweet,
Whose action crisp as parsley,
[p. 1094] Whose gait like cosmosandalum.
Pour rosy wine, and with loud voice
Raise the glad pæan's song,
As laws of God and man enjoin
On holy festival.
And the author of the Miners, whoever he was, (and that poem is attributed to the same Pherecrates,) says—
Treading on soft aspalathi
Beneath the shady trees,
In lotus-bearing meadows green,
And on the dewy cypirus;
And on the fresh anthryscum, and
The modest tender violet,
And green trefoil. . .

But here I want to know what this trefoil is; for there is a poem attributed to Demarete, which is called The Trefoil. And also, in the poem which is entitled The Good Men, Pherecrates or Strattis, whichever is the author, says—

And having bathed before the heat of day,
Some crown their head and some anoint their bodies.
And he speaks of thyme, and of cosmosandalum. And Cratinus, in his Effeminate Persons, says—
Joyful now I crown my head
With every kind of flower;
λείρια, roses, κρίνα too,
And cosmosandala,
And violets, and fragrant thyme,
And spring anemones,
Ground thyme, crocus, hyacinths,
And buds of helichryse,
Shoots of the vine, anthryscum too,
And lovely hemerocalles.
* * * * * *
My head is likewise shaded
With evergreen melilotus;
And of its own accord there comes
The flowery cytisus.

1 There is some corruption in this name.

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