The eared[2234] plants form another variety: among them we find the cynops,[2235] the alopecuros,[2236] the stelephuros,[2237] also known to some persons as the ortyx,[2238] and to others as the plantago, of which last we shall have occasion[2239] to speak more at length among the medicinal plants, and the thryallis.[2240] 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 like[2241] 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.[2242]
CHAP. 62—THE PERDICIUM. THE ORNITHOGALE.
It is not in Egypt only that the perdicium[2243] is eaten; it owes its name to the partridge,[2244] which bird is extremely fond of digging it up. The roots of it are thick and very numerous: and so, too, with the ornithogale,[2245] which has a tender white stalk, and a root half a foot in thickness, bulbous, soft, and provided with three or four other offsets attached to it. It is generally used boiled in pottage.[2246]
CHAP. 63.—PLANTS WHICH ONLY MAKE THEIR APPEARANCE AT THE END OF A YEAR. PLANTS WHICH BEGIN TO BLOSSOM AT THE TOP. PLANTS WHICH BEGIN TO BLOSSOM AT THE LOWER PART.
It is a remarkable thing that the herb lotus[2247] and the ægilops[2248] never make their appearance above ground till the end of a year after the seed has been sown. The anthemis,[2249] too, offers the singular peculiarity that it begins to blossom at the top, while in all the other plants which flower gradually, it is at the lower part that the blossom first makes its appearance.
CHAP. 64.—THE LAPPA, A PLANT WHICH PRODUCES WITHIN ITSELF. THE OPUNTIA, WHICH THROWS OUT A ROOT FROM THE LEAF.
In the lappa,[2250] too, which clings so tenaciously, there is this remarkable peculiarity, that within it there grows a flower, which does not make its appearance, but remains concealed and there produces the seed, like those among the animals which produce within themselves. In the vicinity of Opus there grows a plant[2251] which is very pleasant eating to man, and the leaf of which, a most singular thing, gives birth to a root by means of which it reproduces itself.
CHAP. 65.—THE IASIONE. THE CHONDRYLLA. THE PICRIS, WHICH REMAINS IN FLOWER THE WHOLE YEAR THROUGH.
The iasione[2252] has a single leaf only, but that so folded and involved, as to have all the appearance of being several in number. The chondrylla[2253] is bitter, and the juice of the root is of an acrid taste. The aphace, too, is bitter, and so is the plant called “picris,”[2254] which also remains in flower the whole year through: it is to this bitterness that it is indebted for its name.[2255]