previous next

CHAP. 50. (15.)—PLANTS WHICH GROW SPONTANEOUSLY: THE USE MADE OF THEM BY VARIOUS NATIONS, THEIR NATURE, AND REMARKABLE FACTS CONNECTED WITH THEM. THE STRAW- BERRY, THE TAMNUS, AND THE BUTCHER'S BROOM. THE BATIS, TWO VARIETIES OF IT. THE MEADOW PARSNIP. THE HOP.

We now come to the plants which grow spontaneously, and which are employed as an aliment by most nations, the people of Egypt in particular, where they abound in such vast quantities, that, extremely prolific as that country is in corn, it is perhaps the only one that could subsist without it: so abundant are its resources in the various kinds of food to be obtained from plants.

In Italy, however, we are acquainted with but very few of them; those few being the strawberry,1 the tamnus,2 the butcher's broom,3 the sea4 batis, and the garden batis,5 known by some persons as Gallic asparagus; in addition to which we may mention the meadow parsnip6 and the hop,7 which may be rather termed amusements for the botanist than articles of food.

1 See B. xv. c. 28.

2 See B. xxiii. c. 17. According to some authorities, it is supposed to he the Delphinium staphis agria of Linnæus; but Fée and Desfontaines identify it with the Tamus communis of Linnæus, Our Lady's seal.

3 The Ruscus aculeatus of Linnæus. See B. xxiii. c. 83.

4 In B. xxii. c. 33, this plant is called "halimon." Some authors identify it with the Atriplex halymus, and others, again, with the Crithmum maritimum of Linnæus. See also B. xxvi. c. 50.

5 Identified by some commentators with the Portulaca sativa or Portu- laca oleracea of Linnæus.

6 "Pastinaca pratensis." Fée and Desfontaines are undecided whether this is the Daucus carota of Linnæus, the common carrot, or the Pastinaca sativa, the cultivated parsnip.

7 "Lupus salictarius," the "willow wolf," literally; the Humulus lupulus of Linnæus. It probably took its Latin name from the tenacity with which it clung to willows and osiers.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Latin (Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff, 1906)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

hide References (3 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: