[596] See Stapel, über die Pflanzen des Theophrast. p. 618. Salmasius
ad Solinum, p. 159. Casauboni Animadv. in Athen. Lugd. 1621, fol. p.
146. Bauhini Hist. Plant. iii. p. 48.
[597] Colum. lib. x. ver. 235.
[598] Lud. Nonnii Diæteticon. Antv. 1646, 4to, p. 56.
[599] It was said, that if the corners of the seeds were bruised, no
prickles would be produced. See Geopon. lib. xii. cap. 39. [It is a
well-known physiological fact in botany, that many plants which are
naturally spinous, when cultivated in gardens or rich soil, become
unarmed. The production of spines seems to arise from an imperfect
development of the growing point of a plant; when this development is
increased by the greater supply of nutriment, the spines disappear,
their places being supplied by a branch having leaves. We have
instances of this in the apple, pear, &c., which are naturally spinous.]
[600] Geopon. _l. c._ Columella, xi. cap. 3.
[601] Geopon. 925, where repeated watering is directed; it is said you
will then have tenderer fruit, and in more abundance.
[602] Virgil. Geor. i. 150. Plin. xviii. cap. 17.
[603] Palladius, iv. 9, p. 934, and lib. xi. Octob. p. 987. In the
first-mentioned place he gives the same direction for preventing
prickles, as that quoted respecting the _cinara_.
[604] Pliny, lib. xx. says, “The wind easily carries away the withered
flowers on account of their woolly nature.”
[605] Κύναρος ἄκανθα πάντα πληθύει γύην.--Sophocles, in Phœnice.
... Segnisque horreret in arvis
Carduus...--Virgil. Georg. i. 50.
[606] Athen. Deipnos. at the end of the second book, p. 70. Salmasius,
in his Remarks on Solinus, p. 159, is of opinion that Athenæus wrote
κάρδον, not κάρδυον; and the Latins not _carduus_, but _cardus_.
[607] Lib. iii. cap. 19.
[608] Lib. xix. cap. 8.
[609] _Arctium Lappa_, an indigenous weed, difficult to be rooted out.
Elsholz, in his Gartenbau, speaking of the Spanish cardoons, says,
“The strong stem of the large burr, _Arctium Lappa_, may be dressed in
the same manner, and is not much different in taste.” See also Thomas
Moufet’s Health’s Improvement. Lond. 1746, 8vo, p. 217.
[610] Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 16.
[611] Theophrastus: “Conceptus non spinosus, sed oblongus.” But
Dioscorides says, “Capitulum spinosum.” This contradiction, and other
small variations, have induced some to consider the _scolymus_ of
Theophrastus and that of Dioscorides as two different plants.
[612] Dioscor. iii. 16.
[613] Dioscor. lib. iii. cap. 10, where he says of a plant that its
leaves were like those of the _Scolymus_, and its stem like that of the
_Cinara_.
[614] Rariorum Plantarum Historiæ, lib. iv. p. 153.
[615] “In Crete there is a kind of prickly plant, which in the common
Greek idiom is generally called _ascolimbros_. The ancient Latins
called it also by a Greek name, _glycyrrhizon_, though different from
_glycyrrhiza_ (liquorice). It grows everywhere spontaneously, has a
yellow flower, and abounds with a milky juice. The roots and leaves are
usually eaten before it shoots up into a stem. We saw it exposed for
sale with other herbs in the market-place of Ravenna, and at Ancona,
where the women who were digging it up, gave it the name of _riuci_.
We saw it gathered also in the Campagna di Roma, where the inhabitants
called it _spinaborda_. This is the plant which by the modern Greeks
is named _ascolimbros_.”--Bellonii Observationes, lib. i. cap. 18. “In
Crete it is called _ascolymbros_, and in Lemnos _scombrouolo_, that
is _scombri carduus_. This thistle abounds with a milky juice, like
succory, has a yellow flower, and is excellent eating; so that I know
no root cultivated in gardens which can be compared to it in taste, the
parsnip not even excepted.”
[616] Theophrast. Hist. Plant. p. 620. The figure which Stapel
gives, p. 621, is not of the _Scolymus hispanicus_, but of _Scolymus
maculatus_. It is taken from Clusius, who has also a figure of the
former.
[617] “I considered the heads of these poor Greeks as so many living
inscriptions, which preserve to us the names mentioned by Dioscorides
and Theophrastus. Though liable to different variations, they will,
doubtless, be more lasting than the hardest marble, because they are
every day renewed, whereas marble is effaced or destroyed. Inscriptions
of this kind will preserve, therefore, to future ages the names of
several plants known to those skilful Greeks who lived in happier and
more learned times.”--Voyage du Levant, i. p. 34. Compare with the
above what Haller says in his Biblioth. Botan. i. p. 28.
[618] Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 16. See Theophrast. lib. vi. cap. 4.
Theoocritus, Idyll. x. 4, mentions a lamb wounded in the foot
by a _cactus_. Tertullian names this plant among prickly weeds,
together with the _rubus_, in the end of the second chapter of that
unintelligible book De Pallio. De la Cerda, in his excellent edition of
Opera Tertulliani, Lutetiæ Paris. 1624, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 13, reads
_carecto_ instead of _cacto_; but Salmasius, in his edition of that
work, p. 172, has sufficiently vindicated the latter.
[619] Dioscorid. Alexipharm. cap. 33.
[620] Theoph. p. 613.
[621] The creeping branches were in particular called _cacti_, the
upright stem _pternix_.
[622] Theophrastus calls the bottom of the calyx περικάρπιον, a word
which is still retained in botany. But he also says that the same part
of the _cactus_ was called also σκαλία; from which is derived the
_ascalia_ of Pliny. Galen calls it σπόνδυλον.
[623] Theoph. This term is explained by Pliny, lib. xiii. c.
4:--“Dulcis medulla palmarum in cacumine, quod cerebrum appellant.”
[624] Athen. Deipnos. at the end of the second book, p. 70. He gives
everything to be found in Theophrastus; but either the author or some
of his transcribers have so confused what he says, that it is almost
unintelligible.
[625] Herm. Barbar. ad Dioscor. iii. 15.
[626] Manni de Florentinis inventis commentarium, p. 34.
[627] Politiani Opera. Lugd. 1533, 8vo, p. 444.
[628] Ruellius De Natura Stirpium. Bas. 1543, fol. p. 485.
[629] Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 164. Biographia Britannica, vol. iv. p.
2462; and Anderson’s History of Commerce.
[630] Herm. Barbarus, in his Observations on Dioscorides.
[631] Salmas. ad Solin. p. 160.
[632] It is remarked in Golius’s Dictionary, p. 597, that this word
signifies also the scales of a fish, and the strong scales of the calyx
of the plant may have given rise to the name.
[633] The Greek word is αρτυτική.
[634] Glossarium Suiogothicum, i. p. 411.
[635] Potatoes.
[636] A variety of derivations may be found in Menage’s Dictionnaire
Etymologique.
[637] See Rozier, Cours Complet d’Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 14.
[638] See his Travels. Geneva, 1681, fol. p. 164.