in Botany, a name given by the ancient Greeks to a species of mullein.

The Greeks and Romans both used the stalks of a peculiar kind of mullein, called thyrallis by Nicander, for the making of wicks of lamps. We have a kind of mullein called lychnites, and candle-wick mullein, from the λυχνίτης of Dioscorides; but it is not certain that ours is the same plant.

The ancients used the stalks of many different plants for the wicks of their candles and lamps. The rush, stripped of its bark, was as commonly in use with them as with us for that purpose; and they also used the nettle, this mullein, and many other plants, whose stalks were composed of tough filaments, for the same purpose; beating them out like hemp, and when dry dipping them in melted resin, and other such inflammable substances. When thus prepared, they are readily inflammable, like our flambeau; and this mullein, having stalks more long and large, and more firm than all the others, was used to make those lights with which they set fire to the funeral pile, for consuming the ashes of their dead friends.