Historic Lavandula angustifolia

Hullo and happy new year to the big wide and warmer world outside icy
waterlogged West of England.

I specialise in re-creation of historic gardens and what I am looking
for is the true wild form of Lavandula angustifolia rather than some
rehashed twentieth century version. This has proven to be surprisingly
difficult to find, so if anyone out there has some uncrossed genuine
wild strain seed I would be delighted to buy it from you.

I see in the introductory page on lavender in the medit-plants site that
the Romans used it inter al as a pomade. Is there any evidence for this?
Having spent last Summer telling anyone who would listen that the Romans
never  used any lavender except stoechas (My paper on the historic uses
of Lavender presented to the Sequim conference can be seen on our web
site www.arneherbs.co.uk)  I would  not so much have egg on my face as
an entire omelette if I was shown to be wrong, however, it would be nice
but perhaps embarrassing to know the truth. I assume the pomade thing is
based on Horace's second "Carmina"

Cur non sub alta uel platano uel hac 
pinu iacentes sic temere et rosa 
canos odorati capillos, 
dum licet, Assyriaque nardo 
potamus uncti? 

"nardo" both above and elsewhere, has often been translated as Lavender,
but why? Nard has always been either Nardostachys jatamansi or one of
the Valerians. Only around the middle of the sixteenth century when
Matthioli and his friends ganged up against William Turner and his group
of supporters did Nard suddenly become transmogrified into Lavender. 
Perhaps because Lavender is such a common Mediterranean plant,  it was
assumed that it must have been used under some other name and "Nard"just
happened to be in the right place at the right time to be stuck with it.
Incidentally the Loeb edition of Pliny  translates Iphion (syn Tiphion)
as Lavandula latifolia  which had me a bit worried . However the text
ascribes no use to the mysterious plant, just a vague flowering date and
Lewis & Short claim it was a narcissus anyway so my theory that the
Romans disliked Lavender stands until someone knocks it off its perch.
Incidentally just to add to the confusion and to quote the Loeb "Pliny"
again  "Baccar quoque radicis tantum odoratae est….unguenta ex ea radice
fieri solita apud antiquos Aristophanes" Baccar has scent in the root
only….that unguents used to be made by the ancients from its root, we
have a witness in Aristophanes" Pliny XXI §29 (Loeb edition) Baccar
(Asarum) was regarded  as another form of nard even as late as the
Middle Ages. So I will leave this happy new year's puzzle with you in
the hope that some one can resolve it because I just sink in deeper
everytime I go near it
Anthony
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