[1450] There are few plants, Fée says, which are so utterly destitute of all remedial properties as the beet. See B. xix. c. [40].
[1451] Fée says that the leaves of beet are not at all efficacious except as applications for inflammations of the body.
[1452] Dioscorides merely says that the leaves of the limonion are similar to those of beet, but he does not state that it is a kind of wild beet.
[1453] Dioscorides says “ten or more.”
[1454] Fée is inclined to identify the “limonium,” or “meadow-plant,” with the Statice limonium of Linnæus; but looks upon its identification as very doubtful. Fuchs, Tragus, and Lonicerus, have identified it with the Pyrola rotundifolia; but that is not a meadow plant, it growing only in the woods. Others, again, have suggested the Senecio doria, or “water trefoil.”
[1455] Divided by naturalists into wild chicory or endive, the Cichorium intybus of Linnæus, and cultivated endive, the Cichorium endivia of Linnæus. The name “endive” comes from the Arabian “hindeb;” but whether that was derived from the Latin “intubum,” or vice versâ, is uncertain. The two kinds above mentioned, are subdivided, Fée says, into two varieties, the cultivated and the wild. See B. xix. c. [39].
[1456] The foundation of the Greek name, κιχώριον, and the Arabic “Schikhrieh.”
[1457] The medicinal properties of endive vary, according as it is employed wild or cultivated, and according to the part employed. The leaves are more bitter than the stalk, but not so much so as the root. The juice of all the varieties is very similar, probably, to that of the lettuce; but, as Fée says, little use has been made of it in modern times.
[1458] Or else, “Magi.”
[1459] The “useful.”