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CHAP. 36.—THE TRAGION: TRAGACANTHE.

The island of Crete is the only place that produces the shrub called "tragion."1 It is similar in appearance to the terebinth;2 a similarity which extends to the seed even, said to be remarkably efficacious for healing wounds made by arrows. The same island produces tragacanthe3 also, with a root which resembles that of the white thorn; it is very much preferred4 to that which is grown in Media or in Achaia; the price at which it sells is three denarii per pound.

1 See B. xxvii. c. 115.

2 He says elsewhere that it is like the juniper, which, however, is not the case. Guettard thinks that the tragion is the Androsæmon fetidum, the Hyperium hircinum of the modern botanists. Sprengel also adopts the same opinion. Fée is inclined to think that it was a variety of the Pistacia lentiscus.

3 Goat's thorn. The Astragalus Creticus of Linnæus.

4 He speaks of gum tragacanth.

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