Note 550 — BOOK XXV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE WILD PLANTS.

Fée devotes a couple of pages to the vexata quæstio of the identification of this plant, and comes to the conclusion that the Moly of Homer, mentioned on the present occasion, and of Theophrastus, Ovid, and the poets in general is only an imaginary plant; that the white-flowered Moly of Dioscorides and Galen is identical with the Allium Dioscoridis of Sibthorp; and that the yellow-flowered Moly of the author of the Priapeia is not improbably the Allium Moly or magicum of Linnæus. Sprengel derives the name “Moly” from the Arabic, and identifies it with the Allium nigrum of Linnæus.