Herb. Obs. [L. tragion, Gr. τράγιον, f. τράγος he-goat.] A name given by the Greeks to some strong-smelling plant or plants; identified by 16th-c. herbalists with Dictamnus albus (D. Fraxinella, Lyte, 343), and Chenopodium vulvaria (Tragium Germanicum, Lyte, 548).
1567. Maplet, Gr. Forest, 62. Tragion saith Diascorides, onely Crete & Cicilie bringeth forth.
1577. Grange, Gold. Aphrod., F iij. The hearbe Dictamus, or Tragion.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, III. xxi. 343. Of false Dictam…. This herbe is called in Greeke τράγιον, in Latine Tragium: and is the first kind of Tragium described by Dioscorides. Some herboristes cal it Fraxinella, Ibid., V. iv. 549. We do call it in Greeke τράγιον: in Latine Tragium, that is to say, Goates herbe. And bycause you shall reade in Dioscorides of two other herbes called Tragia, to make some difference betwixt them, we do name this Tragium Germanicum: in Frenche, Blanche putain: in base Almaigne, Bocxcruyt: some call it Vuluaria, by whiche name it is knowen of the Herboristes of this Countrie:… I haue named it in Englishe, The ranke stinking Goate, or stinking Motherwort.
1587. Greene, Euphues, Wks. (Grosart), VI. 188. The herbe Tragion being once byt with an Aspis neuer groweth.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Tragium, a shrub … whose Leaves in Autumn stink like a Goat; also the Herb white Dittany.
