114 pliny's natubal history. [Book XII. 



Mount Pelion ; 65 this last kind is much used for the purpose 

 of adulterating the medicament above mentioned. The root 

 of the asphodel, ox-gall, wormwood, sumach, and the amurca 

 of olive oil, are also employed for a similar purpose. The best 

 lycion for medicinal purposes, is that which has a froth on its 

 surface ; the Indians send it to us in leather bottles, made of 

 the skin of the camel or the rhinoceros. The shrub itself is 

 known by some persons in Greece under the name of the 

 Chironian pyxacanthus. 56 



chap. 16. (8.) — MACIE. 



Macir, 57 too, is a vegetable substance that is brought from 

 India, being a red bark that grows upon a large root, and bears 

 the name of the tree that produces it ; what the nature of this 

 tree is, I have not been able to ascertain. A decoction of this 

 bark, mixed with honey, is greatly employed in medicine, as a 

 specific for dysentery. 



CHAP. 17. STJGAE. 



Arabia, too, produces sugar ; 58 but that of India is the most 

 esteemed. This substance is a kind of honey, which collects 



55 Fee suggests that this may possibly be the Lycium Europseum of 

 Linnaeus, a shrub not uncommonly found in the south of Europe. 



56 The Ehamnus Lycioides of Linnaeus, known to us as buckthorn. The 

 berries of many varieties of the Rhamnus are violent purgatives. 



57 "What he means under this head is not known. Fee speaks of a tree 

 which the Brahmins call macre, and which the Portuguese called arvore 

 de las camaras, arvore sancto, arvore de sancto Thome, but of which they 

 have given no further particulars. Acosta, Clusius, and Bauhin have also 

 professed to give accounts of it, but they do not lead to its identification. 

 De Jussieu thinks that either the Soulamea, the Rex amaroris of Rumphius, 

 or else the Polycardia of Commerson is meant. It seems by no means im- 

 possible that mace, the covering of the nutmeg, is the substance alluded to, 

 an opinion that is supported by Gerard and Desfontaines. 



58 " Saecharon." Fee suggests that Pliny alludes to a peculiar kind 

 of crystallized sugar, that is found in the bamboo cane, though, at 

 the same time, he thinks it not improbable that he may have heard of 

 the genuine sugar-cane ; as Strabo, B. xv., speaks of a honey found in 

 India, prepared without the aid of bees, and Lucan has the line — 



" Quique bibunt tenera dulces ab arundine succos," 

 evidently referring to a sugar in the form of a syrup, and not of crystal, 

 like that of the Bambos arundinacea. It is by no means improbable, that 

 Pliny, or rather Dioscorides, from whom he copies, confuses the two kinds 

 of sugar ; as it is well known that the Saccharum officinarum, or sugar- 

 cane, has been cultivated from a very early period in Arabia Felix. 



