[600] This was a common notion with the Romans. Virgil, Georg. B. iii. l. 415, says:—
“Galbaneoque agitare graves nidore chelydros.”
Though considered to produce a pleasant perfume by the ancients, it is no longer held in estimation for that quality, and is only employed in some slight degree for medical purposes.
[601] The produce of the Pastinaca opopanax of Linnæus, or the Panax Copticum of Bauhin, an umbelliferous plant which abounds in the East, and is not uncommon in the south of France. The gum called Opopanax was formerly used, and its supposed virtues are indicated by its name, which signifies “the juice which is the universal remedy.”
[602] The umbelliferous plant known as the Heracleum spondylium of Linnæus. It is commonly found in France, where it is called Berce-branc-ursine. It received its name from the resemblance of its smell to that of the sphondyle, a fetid kind of wood-beetle.
[603] Some suppose this tree to be the Laurus cassia of Linnæus, or wild cinnamon; others take it for the betel, the Piper betel of Linnæus. Clusius thinks that the name is derived from the Indian Tamalpatra, the name given from time immemorial to the leaf of a tree known by the Arabs as the Cadegi-indi, possibly the same as the Katou-carua of the Malabars.
[604] From the Greek ὀμφάκιον, being made of unripe grapes. As Fée remarks, that made from the olive is correctly described as a kind of oil, but that made from the grape must have been a rob, or pure verjuice. These two liquids must have had totally different qualities, and resembled each other in nothing but the name. That extracted from the olive is mentioned again in B. xxiii. c. 4, in reference to its medicinal properties.
[605] These grapes are described in B. xiv. c. [4] and c. [11].
[606] “Reliquum corpus.” It is not clear what is the meaning of this. The passage is either in a corrupt state, or defective.
[607] A singular metal, one would think, for keeping verjuice in.