Acanthus
Acanthus names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Acanthus a genus of perennial herbs native in the countries of the Mediterranean
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a genus of perennial herbs native in the countries of the Mediterranean. The acanthus family contains some 1400 species of herbs and shrubs, chiefly tropical. The name is from the Greek and signifies a thorn. It has reference to the spines which terminate the lobes of the leaves of certain species. The acanthus proper includes several species, the chief of which are the soft-leaved and the spiny-leaved acanthus. These and other species are cultivated for borders and window plants. The flower stem springs to a height of three feet from the center of a rosette or cluster of handsome, dark green, shining leaves, and bears a spike of large monopetalous, irregular white or yellowish flowers. The stem, leaves, and roots of the plant are mucilaginous. A deep blue dye is obtained from a kindred species growing in Assam. The acanthus is known in British gardens as bear's breech. The acanthus leaf is noted in art. The leaves that adorn the capital of the Corinthian column are the conventionalized foliage of the spiny-leaved acanthus known to botanists as Acanthus spinosus. The acanthus leaf was a favorite design for the ornamentation of the cornice and frieze not only in Grecian but in Roman, Byzantine, medieval, and Renaissance architecture. The acanthus leaf was employed also in decorating vases, drinking cups, platters, and furniture. An acanthus design was adopted for embroidery and other needlework and was used by the house decorator for walls. Acanthus spinosus
Acanthus a genus of plants
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a genus of plants, the typical one of the order acanthaceæ , or acanthads. In English it is inelegantly termed bear's beech, or, more euphoniously, brank ursine. In architecture , it is the imitation, in the capitals of the Corinthian and Composite orders, of the leaves of a species of acanthus, the A. spinosus, which is found in Greece. The acanthus first copied is supposed to have been growing around a flower pot; and the merit of adopting the suggestion thus afforded for the ornamentation of the capital of a pillar is attributed to Callimachus.
Acanthus the name of three anacademicians were named
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name of three anacademicians were named. In 1803 the cient cities: (1) in Egypt, (2) in Caria, Academy was reconstituted and became and (3) in Macedonia. The latter city the third class of the Institute. Comis noted for the construction, across the parative philology, Oriental, Greek, and neck of the peninsula of Mount Athos, Roman antiquities and epigraphy have of the great canal through which sailed received the attention of the Academy. the fleet of Xerxes on its way to Greece.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Botanically the accounts still hold: Acanthus remains a small Mediterranean genus of perennial herbs, still called bear's breech in British gardens, and A. mollis and A. spinosus are still the two species gardeners grow. Aiton's 1910 figure of "some 1400 species" for the family Acanthaceae has risen with later collecting to roughly 2,500 or more, and modern writers are less sure than Collier's was in 1921 that the Corinthian capital copies A. spinosus specifically "a flower pot" was Vitruvius's basket of offerings on a girl's grave, and the attribution to Callimachus is still treated as a charming legend rather than history. The one solid new fact concerns the third Acanthus, in Macedonia: the canal Xerxes cut across the neck of the Athos peninsula, long doubted by some as Herodotean exaggeration, was traced and confirmed by geophysical survey in the 1990s, showing a channel wide enough for two ships abreast.
Written for this edition, 2026.