The Asphodel, referred to by Homer and many later poets, was a plant having edible roots that were laid in the tombs of the dead to nourish the departed spirit in its wanderings in the dim world of shadows. Lucian has a very good illustrative passage that we may here quote. The words are put into the mouth of Charon, and are as follows :-" Down here with us there is nothing to be had but asphodel, and libations and oblations, and that in the midst of mist and darkness; but up in heaven it is all bright and clear, and plenty of ambrosia there, and nectar without stint." The plant referred to by the classic poets was supposed to be the narcissus, but in mediaeval days the wild daffodil was intended, at least by the poets, while the herbalists were all at sea in the matter, and applied the name to several different plants.,
Gerarde, in his " Historie of Plants," refers to Galen as an authority, quoting from his " Faculties of Nourishments " in defence of , the plant he selects, but does not seem to have heard of the old belief in its forming a food for the immortal-, and can indeed give it no higher effect in staying the ravages of time and decay than that " the ashes of this Bulbe mixed with oile and hens grease cureth the fal.ing of the haire." Parkinson, in his "Theatrum Botanicum," brings the plant down to a still lower level, and not only sees no poetry in it, but rather more than hints at a fraud, for he says-" The
countrey people know no other name thereof or propertie appropriate unto it but knavery, which, whether they named it so in knavery, or knew any use of knavery in it, I neither can learn nor am much inquisitive thereafter."
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