* * * * * COMMENTARY. It is, as here stated, the fruit of the wild _Strawberry-tree_, that is to say of the _Arbutus Unedo_, L. Μέσπιλα, Mespila, _Medlars_ (called also Tricocca); their fruit being decidedly sour and scarcely edible, proves astringent of the bowels: and its shoots and leaves are also decidedly sour. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Dioscorides describes the two species of Medlar in such distinct terms as leaves no doubt that they are the _Mespilus Azarolus_ and _Germanica_. He represents their fruit as being esculent and slightly astringent. (i, 169, 170.) Galen says of the medlar, that it is acid and austere, and barely esculent, and that it restrains fluxes. (De Simpl. vii.) The other Greek and Arabian authorities give the same account of it. See in particular, Avicenna (ii, 2, 742) and Ebn Baithar (i, 532.) The Arabians prepared an ointment from it for making the hair black and curled. Casiri (Bibl. Arab. Hisp. 330.) The term _azarolus_ is borrowed from the Arabic. See Avicenna (l. c.) Μήδιον, Medium; the powers of the root are contrary to those of the fruit, for the former is austere and astringent of fluxes, so as to restrain the female fluor. But the seed even promotes menstruation, being possessed of attenuating and incisive powers. * * * * * COMMENTARY. The description of this article given by Dioscorides is sufficiently precise to decide its belonging to the genus _Campanula_. It was at one time generally referred to the species called _Medium_, but, as Sprengel remarks, the appearance of the leaves does not agree with those of the _medium_. Sibthorp, therefore, in his ‘Flora Græca,’ has decided that it is the _C. laciniata_. (i, 141.) Dioscorides and Galen agree in giving it the same medicinal powers as our author. We are at a loss to determine whether or not it occurs in the Materia Medica of the Arabians, with the exception of Ebn Baithar, who merely gives the descriptions of it by Dioscorides and Galen. (ii, 541.) Μήκωνες,