PHÉOS, in botany, a name which Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and others, give to a plant used by fullers in dressing their cloths, and of which there were two kinds, a smaller called simply phéos, and a larger called hippophéos. This plant is sometimes called phéos; and is thus confounded with a kind of marsh cudweed, or gnaphalium, called also by that name; but it may always be discovered which of the two plants an author means, by observing the sense in which the word is used, and the use to which the plant was put. The phéos, properly so called, that is, the cudweed, was used to stuff beds and other such things, and to pack up with earthen vessels to prevent their breaking; but the phéos, improperly called phéos, only about cloths: this was, however, also called phéos and enophéos.