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CHAP. 61.—THE VARIOUS KINDS OF EARED PLANTS: THE STAN- YOPS; THE ALOPECUROS; THE STELEPHUROS, ORTYX, OR PLAN- TAGO; THE THRYALLIS.

The eared1 plants form another variety: among them we find the cynops,2 the alopecuros,3 the stelephuros,4 also known to some persons as the ortyx,5 and to others as the plantago, of which last we shall have occasion6 to speak more at length among the medicinal plants, and the thryallis.7 The alopecuros, among these, has a soft ear and a thick down, not unlike a fox's tail in fact, to which resemblance it owes its name. The plant most like8 it is the stelephuros, were it not that it blossoms only a little at a time. In the cichorium and similar plants, the leaves are near the ground, the buds springing from the root just after the rising of the Vergiliæ.9

1 "Spicatæ."

2 Fée is in doubt whether to identify it with the Plantago cynops of the south of Europe, and the banks of the Rhine.

3 "Foxtail." According to Dalechamps, it is the Saccharum cylindricum, the Lagurus of Linnæus; but Fée expresses his doubts as to their identity.

4 Fée inclines to think that it may be the Secale villosum of Linnæus; though the more recent commentators identify it with the Plantago angustifolia. The Saccharum Ravennæ has been suggested.

5 Or "quail."

6 In B. xxv. c. 39.

7 Hardouin takes this to be our pimpernel, the Sanguisorba officinalis of Linnæus. Sprengel inclines to the Verbascum lychnitis of Linnæus.

8 "Proxuma."

9 See B. xviii. c. 66.

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