[2838] This cannot be the bryony, Fée says, but simply a variety of the grape vine with white fruit. See further in c. [5] of this Book.
[2839] “Impetigines.”
[2840] Alkaline ashes, which would differ but very little, Fée says, from those of other vegetable productions.
[2841] This statement as to the caustic properties of the ashes is based upon truth.
[2842] In B. xii. c. 60.
[2843] Saracenus, upon Dioscorides, B. v. c. 6, thinks that Pliny, in copying from the Greek, has made a mistake here, and that he has taken οὖλον, the “gums,” for οὐλὴ, a “cicatrix;” the corresponding passage in Dioscorides being οὖλα πλαδαρὰ, “flaccidity,” or “humidity of the gums.”
[2844] In B. xii. c. 61. See also B. xiii. c. 2, B. xiv. c. 18, and B. xv. c. 7. Œnanthe, or vine-blossom, possesses no active medicinal properties, and the statements made here by Pliny are in all probability unfounded.
[2845] Not the white vine, or Bryonia alba of modern botany, but probably some variety of the cultivated vine with white fruit. The flower of the bryony is inodorous, and would be of no utility in the composition of perfumes.
[2846] “Pterygia.”
[2847] See B. xii. c. 61. It was prepared from vine-blossoms gathered in Africa.