64 BURMA, ITS PEOPLE AXD PRODUCTIOXS. 



mountain East of Tavoy ; also, by the stream that tumhlfs down the steep side 

 of Patau, iu the island called Madieniacam, Mcrgui. In Baker's Synopsis the name 

 is changed into Dichonia [Cibotium) Barometz, because it is supposed by some to 

 be the fern called Puh/podium Barometz by Loureiro — a fern of which wondrous 

 things have been said. The following account is taken fi'om the " Treasuiy of 

 Botany" under the heading of " CihotiumP 



" C. Barometz, sometimes called V. glaucescens, is believed to be the ' JBara>utz,' 

 Agnns Scytliicus, or Tartarian Lamb, about which travellers have told so 

 wondrous a tale. This 'Lamb' consists merely of the decumbent shaggy caudex 

 of a kind of fern, which is no doubt the species just referred lo. When inverted 

 (the basal part of the stipes of four of the fronds, suitably placed, having been 

 retained as legs, and the rest east away), these caudices present an appear.mce 

 which may be taken as a rude representation of some small woolly animal. The 

 ' traveller's tale ' is that on. an elevated uncultivated salt-plain of vast extent. 

 West of the Volga, grows a wonderful plant, with the appearance of a lamb {Baran 

 in Russian), having feet, head, and tail distinctly formed, and its skin covered with 

 solt down. The 'lamb' grows upon a stalk about three feet high, the part by 

 which it is sustained being a kind of navel : it tm'ns about and bends to the 

 herbage, which serves for its food, and pines away when the grass dries up and 

 fails. The fact on which this tale is based appears to be, that the caude,^ of this 

 plant may be made to present a rude appearance of an animal covered with silky 

 hair-like scales, and, if cut into, is found to have a soft inside with a reddish flesh- 

 coloured appearance. When the herbage of its native haunts fails through drought, 

 its leaves no doubt droop and die ; but both perish from the same cause, and inde- 

 pendently of each other. ' Thus it is (observes Dr. Lindley) that simple people 

 have been persuaded that there existed in the deserts of Scythia eroatui'cs half 

 animal, half plant.' ' This condition of the root-stock of some ferns" (writes Sir 

 W. J. Hooker) long engaged the attention of early writers of the marvellous, and 

 many strange figures were published of it; but Dr. Beyne, of Dantzig, in 172.5, 

 declared that the pretended Agnus Seijthicus was nothing more than the root 

 of a large fern covered with its natural villus or yellow down,'' etc. 



It will be noted that the writer of this article says, there is " no doubt " that 

 the fern which was the base of this wondrous tale is our C. ylauccacem:. But that 

 fern must have been a Scythian or Tartarian plant — whei'eas ours is a tropical 

 one. Is our C. glaucescens found also on the bleak and arid plains spoken of? 

 Our fern, I believe, could not exist in such a climate. Again, to present even 

 the most distant appearance of an animal, it is necessary that the caudex should 

 be "decumbent " (as Aspidium Barometz is desonbed by Willdenow "radix de- 

 eumbens, crassa"), whereas our C. glaucescens has an erect caudex and tufted 

 fronds. It is indeed pronounced to be " caulescent" ; but in order to be caulescent, 

 the caudex of a fern must he erect and not decumbent. Tliis is the difficulty 

 which seems to me to militate against the identity of the two jilants. Erasmus 

 Darwin's fanciful iluso thus describes this strange fern ; (the very first line, I 

 observe, ill-suits our tropical plant) : 



" Cradled in snow and fanned by arctic air 

 Shines, gentle Barometz I thy golden hair; 

 Booted in earth each cloven hoof descends, 

 And round and round her fiexile neck she bends ; 

 Crops the grey coral-moss and hoaiy thyme, 

 Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime. 

 Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam, 

 Or seems to bleat — a vegetable Lamb." 



Loves of the Plants, Canto I., '281. 



' f.ij. Tliat n{ DnrnVia Canariennh, sometimes ciUod the " liare's foot fern,"' from the simihirity 

 of tlie euj of the rhizome to the foot of that animal. 



