Bot. Also 5–6 coniza, 6 conisa; and (in 6) in anglicized form conyse. [L., a. Gr. κονύζα, applied (according to Fraas) to the two plants Inula viscosa and I. graveolens.] A genus of strong-smelling herbaceous or shrubby plants of the Composite order. The Flea-banes, to which the name was originally applied, are now placed in the genus Inula; the ‘Ploughman’s Spikenard’ or ‘Fleawort,’ is variously classed as Inula Conyza, DC., or Conyza squarrosa, L.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 487. Coniza is an herbe … That drie is good to kest under thi grayne.
1551. Turner, Herbal, I. L iv b. Coniza is of twoo sortes … it may be called in Englyshe Conyse … strowed vpon the grounde, or in a perfume wyth the smoke of it, [it] dryueth away serpentes and gnattes and kylle[th] flees.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, I. xxiii. 34. Of Conyza or Flebane. Ibid., 35. Theophrast calleth the great Conyza the male, and the smaller Conyza the female.
1866. Treas. Bot., 326.
