[966] Theophrastus enumerates these varieties, Hist. Plant. B. vii. c. 4.
[967] Theophrastus only says that the Laconian cucumber thrives better with watering than the others.
[968] It is impossible to identify this plant, as no ancient writer has given any description of it: it has been suggested, however, that it may have been the Plantago Psyllium, or else the Inula pulicaria of Linnæus. Of course there is no truth in the story here told of the effects of its juice upon the cucumber.
[969] This depth would probably have the effect of retarding, or else utterly impeding, the growth of the plant.
[970] See c. [44] of this Book. The Parilia was a festival celebrated on the nineteenth of April, the anniversary of the foundation of Rome.
[971] First of March.
[972] Seventh of March.
[974] The “camerarium,” and the “plebeium.” The former, Fée thinks, is the Cucurbita longior of Dodonæus and J. Bauhin, the long gourd, and other varieties probably of the calabash gourd, the Cucurbita leucantha of Duchesne. The latter is probably the Cucurbita pepo and its varieties. Fée thinks that the name “cucurbita,” as employed by Pliny, extends not only to the gourd, but the citrul or small pumpkin as well.
[975] As Fée says, he must be speaking of the fruit here, and not the plant, which attains a far greater length than nine feet.