The Acanthus at the Cloisters

by the Greeks, the ' word akantha meaning thorn, thistle, or spine. Of some of the stylized ornaments it is rather . difficult to say whether they were fashioned after one of the thistles, the Acanthus spi: nosus and mollis, or were just imaginary designs. Many thistle-like ; plants, for instance cer? : tain species of silybum, carduus, and cirsium, The Acanthus spino, were known to grow of Dioscorides, Byz6 in the same geographical region as the acanthus; and naturalists in Greek times, not having our system of classifying plants according to the construction of the flower, very likely grouped them only by similar habit and appearance. In Dioscorides's Greek Herbal all kinds of