1. Georg. 2.9-13:

Principio arboribus varia est natura creandis

nam que aliae nullis hominum cogentibus ipsae


sponte sua veniunt camposque et flumina late
 curva tenent,

ut molle siler lentaeque genestae,


populus et glauca canentia fronde salicta;

(To begin with, nature has different ways of making trees. For some, with no man forcing them, come of their own accord and hold far and wide both the fields and the curving rivers, such as the soft siler and the pliant broom, the poplar and the willow groves growing grey with shining leaves.)

2. Servius (ad loc.) is no help. He is merely amazed at the neuter gender for a tree:

genus arboris est. et notandum genus neutrum de arbore, quod est admodum rarum.

3. We do, however, get some pointers from two passages in Pliny (NH 16.77):

non nisi in aquosis proveniunt salices, alni, populi, siler, ligustra tesseris utilissima, item vaccinia Italiae in aucupiis sata, Galliae vero etiam purpurae tinguendae causa ad servitiorum vestes.

(Willows, alders, poplars, the siler, privets [1] (very useful for making account slips) only grow in watery places; likewise bilberry, [2] which is sown in Italy in game bird preserves, but in Gaul also for the sake of a purple used to dye the clothes of slaves. [3] )

4. Pliny NH 24.73:

Sileris folia illita fronti capitis dolores sedant. eiusdem semen contritum in oleo phthiriasis coercet. serpentes et hunc fruticem fugiunt, baculumque rustici ob id ex eo gerunt.

(The leaves of the siler, applied to the forehead cure headaches, and its seed ground in oil cures lice infestations.  Snakes flee this shrub, and for that reason peasants carry a stick made out of it.)

So what do we know about the siler? 

1. Vergil ties it to broom (genista, Spartium junceum L.), which likes “dry hills, hedges.” [4]

2. On the other hand, Pliny 16.77 links it with willow, alder, poplar, and privet as a river bank plant.  However, this is much less of a clue than it seems. Pliny has just claimed (16.73) that the poplar loves mountains (montes amant), nor are privet (ligustra) or bilberry (vaccinia) fond of wet ground. [5]  

La Cerda seems to be the first to have noticed that Vergil arranged the four species in an ABAB pattern, two bushes in the fields, and two taller trees by the rivers: ‘campos implent siler & genista: littora populus, & salices.’ [6]   He was on the right track:

‘Explicui non de illo, quod nascitur in aquosis, ut auctor est Plin. lib. 16 c. 18, sed de montano, tum quia Poetae venustior sententia, si binas species campis attribuas, binas fluminibus : tum quia huius prae illo frequentior mentio in scriptoribus herbariis’. 

(I explain siler not as the plant that grows in the marsh, for which the authority is Pliny 16.18 [77], but as a mountain plant, both because of the Poet’s elegant formulation in giving two species to the fields and two to the rivers, and because there is more frequent mention of the later than the former in the  botanical writers.) [7]

Abbe came independently to the same conclusion: ‘It appears that Virgil intends siler and genista to go with campos, and populus and salicta to go with flumina . . . Thus siler and genista are released from the superficial bond with flumina and, consequently, with populus and salicta.  Pliny’s reference (16.18.31 [i.e. 16.77]) may be based at least partially on Virgil’s lines’. [8]   Our best clue seems to have evaporated.

3. Vergil calls it molle, an adjective which he applies to reeds (E. 2.72: iunco) and acanthus (E. 3.45) and to flowers: bilberries (vaccinia E. 2.50), violets (E. 5.38), and hyacinth (E. 6.53, G. 4.127, A. 11.69).  As Mynors says, “This does not help here.” [9]

4. It is a bush or shrub (frutex) rather than a tree; that is, it is something with individual stalks or shoots, rather than a single trunk or bole. [10] This point seems to have been universally ignored.  It has leaves and seeds; also you can make a stick out of it. [11] (The supposed flight of snakes does not offer much aid in identification).

There have been various attempts at identification, most proceeding from the idea that siler should be some sort of tree that grows by river banks, or else assuming siler must be some other plant whose name looks something like siler. [12]   Top candidates (in chronological order) have included: [13]

Euonymus latifolius (L.) Miller (Polunin (718); under the name Euonymus Theophrasti), Eng. Spindle-tree. [14]

Laserpitium siler L. (Polunin 905; under the name Siler montanum Crantz;), Eng. Sermountain. This was La Cerda’s own choice (1647).

Salix caprea L. (Polunin 29), Eng. Goat Willow, Great Sallow. [15]

Salix appendiculata Vill. (not in Polunin; under the name Salix grandifolia [Ser. 1815]), Eng. Large-leaved Willow. [16]

Salix alba subsp. vitellina (Polunin 25; under the name Salix vitellina L.), Eng. White Willow. [17]

Vaccinium oxycoccos L. (Polunin 937), Eng. Cranberry. [18]

Hippophae rhamnoides L. (Polunin 761), Eng. Sea Buckthorn. [19]

Frangula alnus Miller (Polunin 724; under the name Rhamnus frangula L.), Eng. Alder Buckthorn. [20]

Abbe was more adventuresome: ‘An unidentified plant, probably one of the Umbelliferae’, [21] mostly, as far as I can tell from her references, because of a fancied resemblance of the name to silphium (the famous extinct plant) and sil, seseli (hartwort, Tordylium officinale).

None of these has much to recommend it and argumentation is sparse to nonexistent. [22]   Most editors and commentators have been content to call siler some kind of willow and get on with things; [23] others are more properly agnostic. [24]

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However, there is one further clue that curiously does not seem to have been followed up by anyone and which points to a single plant.  Fact 5: Pliny says siler is useful for curing phthiriasis.  Celsus tells us about this particularly loathsome disease (6.6.15):

Genus quoque viti est, quom inter pilos palpebrarum peduculi nascuntur: phthiriasin Graeci nominant.

 

(There is also a type of disease in which lice are born between the eyelashes; the Greeks call it phthiriasis [φθειρίασις < φθείρ ‘louse’]).  

Celsus also gives us the cure:

Medicamenta vero intus quidem lenia danda sunt, ne quid acrioris pituitae concitent, super ipsos vero peduculos alia, quae necare eos, et prohibere, ne similes nascantur, possint. Ad id ipsum spumae nitri P.*-; sandaracae P.*-; uvae taminiae P.*I simul teruntur, adiciturque vetus oleum pari portione atque acetum, donec mellis ei crassitudo sit.

 

(The medicines taken internally must be gentle so as not to provoke the already acrid discharge from the eyes.  Others should be applied directly to the lice themselves to kill them and to prevent others form being born.  For this: 1/12 denarius [c. 0.36 gr.] foam of nitre [a naturally occurring form of sodium carbonate], 1/12 denarius sandaraca [realgar, arsenic sulphide, As₄S₄], and 1 denarius [c. 4.31 gr. = Attic drachma] of taminia grape are ground together; equal parts of old oil and vinegar are added until it is the thickness of honey.)

Pliny agrees with the treatment (26.138):

Phthiriasi Sulla dictator consumptus est, nascunturque in sanguine ipso hominis animalia exesura corpus. resistitur uvae taminiae suco aut veratri cum oleo perunctis corporibus; taminia quidem in aceto decocta etiam vestes eo taedio liberat.

 

(Sulla the dictator was consumed by phthiriasis, and there are born in man’s very blood creatures that will eat away his body.  It is combated by anointing the entire body with the juice of taminia grape or hellebore in oil.  In fact, taminia grape boiled in vinegar frees even clothes from this pest. [25] )

 

Celsus has already told us what taminia grape is (3.21.7):

 

uva taminia quam σταφίδα ἀγρίαν Graeci nominant

(taminia grape, which the Greeks call σταφὶς ἀγρία [‘wild raisin’]).

The plant σταφὶς ἀγρία is Delphinium staphisagria L. (Polunin 212), known in English as staveacre [26]   and, significantly enough, licebane or lousewort.  Staveacre is a close relative of the familiar larkspur (Consolida ambigua (L.) P. W. Ball & Heywood; Delphinium ajacis auct.; Polunin 213), which it closely resembles, having a tall central stalk up to 1.5 m., broad leaves, and small purple flowers.  Staveacre has a long history as a cure for lice, used well into the twentieth century, since it contains three poisonous alkaloids, delphinine, its isomer delphisine, and delphinoidine. [27]

Pliny gives us more information.  In his book on medical uses of fruits, he treats first grape vines and then things that resemble vines (23.17):

Astaphis agria sive staphis, quam uvam taminiam aliqui vocant falso-suum enim genus habet-, cauliculis nigris, rectis, foliis labruscae, fert folliculos verius quam acinos, virides, similes ciceri, in his nucleum triangulum. maturescit cum vindemia nigrescitque, cum taminiae rubentes norimus acinos sciamusque illam in apricis nasci, hanc non nisi in opacis. his nucleis ad purgationem uti non censuerim propter ancipitem strangulationem, neque ad pituitam oris siccandam, quia fauces laedunt. (18) phthiriasi caput et reliquum corpus triti liberant, facilius admixta sandaraca, item pruritu et psoris. ad dentium dolores decocuntur in aceto, ad aurium vitia, rheumatismos cicatricum, ulcerum manantia. flos tritus in vino contra serpentes bibitur; semen enim abdicaverim propter nimiam vim ardoris. quidam eam pituitariam vocant. plagis serpentium utique inlinunt.

 

Astaphis agria, or staphis—which some incorrectly call uva taminia, although that is a separate species [28] —has dark erect stalks, leaves like wild vines, and bears pods rather than grapes, green, like chickpeas, with a three-sided stone inside.  It matures and grows dark at the same time as the wine harvest, but we all recognize the still reddening grapes of the taminia and we know that staphis grows in sunny spots but the taminia only in shaded areas.  I would not advise the use of staphis seeds for purging due to the danger of choking, nor for dying up phlegm in the mouth, because they harm the throat.  Ground they rid the head and the rest of the body of lice infestation, more easily when sandaraca is mixed in.  Also works for itching and psoriasis.  They are cooked in vinegar for toothache, for ear complaints, seeping scars, [29] and weeping ulcers.  The flower ground in wine is drunk against snakes.  The seed, however, I would reject because of its excessive power of heat.  Some call it pituitaria. [30]   They especially apply it against snakebite.

Scribonius Largus (8, 166 [no web text]) adds the fact that staphis agaria is also called pedicularia ‘louse-herb’; Columella (6.30.8) calls it herba pedicularis. [31]

Siler therefore seems to be another name for σταφὶς ἀγρία, the cure for lice infestation. This identification receives support from the Greek texts on which Pliny and his sources drew.  This passage is taken fairly directly from the sources Pliny shares with Dioscorides 4.152. [32]   Phthiriasis is the Latinized version of φθειρίασις, a word used (apart from testimonia about the bizarre deaths by lice of Perecydes and Callisthenes) [33] only in the medical writers and only in connection with σταφὶς ἀγρία.  The recipes combine it, as in Celsus’ and Pliny’s cures, with sandaraca. [34]   Pliny’s other use for siler also fits in well with staveacre.  So, fact 6: its leaves cure headaches.  The leaves of staveacre, as Pliny says, resemble wild vine leaves, and Pliny has just recommended vine leaves for the same purpose (23.3). [35]   The idea seem to be that vine leaves and things that resemble them are good for headaches.

Staveacre thus fits well the few facts about siler.  1. It grows wild.  2. It grows in the same areas as broom. 3. It could be called molle (for what that is worth).  4. It is a bush with a tall stalk that would make a fine stick.  5. It is the best-known cure for lice.  6. It has vine-like leaves that cure headache. 

There are three possible objections to this identification.

1. Pliny says that siler only grows in watery places and staveacre is not especially associated with river banks, though it can, of course, flourish there. [36]   However, as we have seen, Pliny’s statement is incorrect when it comes to several of his species and was probably influenced by a misreading of Vergil. 

2. Would Vergil have considered as growing spontaneously (ipsae / sponte sua) a plant with seeds?  However, broom (genista), the example which Vergil links to siler, has exactly this type of visible seed pod, and Vergil’s contrast (G. 2.14-16) is with chestnuts (castanae; Castanea sativa), sessile oak (aesculus; Quercus petraea) and English oak (quercus; Quercus robur), all with large nuts.  Further, Pliny (17.136) is well-aware that genista can be a crop grown from deliberately planted seeds.  He also knows that willows can grow from seeds and the seeds are a famous abortifacient (16.110).  Only the poplar (populus) is seedless (16.108). 

3. If siler is staphis agria, why does not Pliny just say so? It is common, however, in Pliny to find one plant under several names, and the discrepancies are due to Pliny’s use of his sources. [37]   The section on staphis agria (23.17), which he shares with Dioscorides, comes from a Greek source.  The chapter on siler (24.73), using what seems to be a native name, presumably comes from a Latin source.  Both share the fact that the plant is good for getting rid of lice.  Pliny knows one semi-Latin name for staphis agria as pituitaria (‘phlegm-plant’, as it were), [38] and Scribonius and Columella know another, pedicularia (-is), but it is likely that Pliny simply failed to reconcile his different entries and their different references. [39]   Siler seems to have been an uncommon (possibly country) word for a shrub. 

Despite necessary uncertainties, its fame as a cure for lice points most directly to staveacre (Delphinium staphisagria L.) as the likeliest identification for Vergil's siler.  

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