Re: Lychnis--Why Lamp Flowers?

p.k.peirce@att.net wrote:
> 
> Here is a word root question about the name of a
> Mediterranean plant. (Really I suppose it is a question
> of Mediterranean historical economic botany, but I hope
> not too far off topic.)
> 
> For a writing project, I have been researching the
> source of the name Lychnis. 

Pam
This is another one for a wet Sunday afternoon. The Gunter/Goodyer
edition of Dioscorides has Luchnis stephanomatike translated as Lychnis
coronaria or Rose Campion and Luchnis agria translated as Agrostemma
gigatho syn L sylvestris "some call it.....lampas" but no mention of
wicks 
So I looked at Pliny who gets himself into a bit of a muddle, at first
including it in his chapter on roses  "Est et quae graeca appellatur a
nostris, a graecis lychnis...." (21:18) and the translator helpfully
inserts the words "lamp rose" after Lychnis. Then on 21:171, Pliny
writes "Lychnis quoque flammea illa adversus serpentes et
scorpiones...bibiatur e vino semine trito"  The "flame" bit sounds to me
like L chalcedonica whilst the use described is not dissimilar to that
mentioned by Dioscorides, but still no mention of lamp wicks until we
get to the descriptions of Verbascums in 25:120/1 "Verbascum graeci
phlomon vocant......sunt et phlomides duae....tertia
lychnitis.....foliis ternis aut cum plurimum quaternis crassis
pinguibusque ad lucernarum lumina aptis". Leaving aside the knotty
problem of if there are only two phlomides, how can lychnitis be the
third, this sent me back to try Phlomos in Dioscorides and found that
Pliny had
copied Dioscorides description of "Phlomos" (but NOT Luchnis)  almost
word for word "There is a third Phlomis called Lychnitis....having three
or four or more, thick fat, rough leaves good for candle wicks
(Dioscorides Gunther/Goodyer edition)
 And of course the traditional English name of Verbascum  is "Hag's
taper" referring to its traditional use among the pooorer classes as a
lamp wick.
Turner wrote in 1562 "There are two principal kinds of Verbascus which
is called Phlomos in Greek...the white Verbascum is called   commonly in
English, Mollen or Hickis taper....." Given the comprehensiveness of his
work, it is surprising that he omits the plants we now know as Lychnis
altogether
Fernie (1897 edition p 360)  who is always good for a story wrote
"According to Dodaeus, the Mullein was called "Candela". Folia siquidem
habet mollia hirsuta ad lucernarum funiculos apta. It was named of the
Latines, Candela regia and Candelaria"
All of which may raise more questions than it answers, like if "Luchnis"
in Dioscorides can be translated as lamp (as succeeding translators have
certainly done) why did he not mention this use in his text? One could
suggest that he was referring to a plant altogether different from that
we now regard as a Lychnis except that the Anicia Juliana illustrations
are clearly those of a Lychnis. And then Pliny, why does he  claim that
the Greeks thought it to be a rose before later switching to the
Verbascums and Phlomis, which latter are, I suppose somewhat
superficially similar to one another but not to roses.
Incidentally, The white flowered  one we grow here is Verbascum
lychnitis  and I think it would make rotten candles compared with the 
yellow flowered V  thapsus and olympicum etc. I think the only
complaint we can make against Linnaeus is that he had the opportunity
for righting the confusion created by Dioscorides and didn't take it.
All this is a long winded way of saying modern Lychnis and classical
lamp
flowers are not the same thing, actually there is a lot more to it than
this but I wouldn't like to spoil your enjoyment in researching it for
yourself.

Anthony
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