202 PLINY'S NATURAL IIISTORY. [Book XIII. 



shrub called " tragion." 91 It is similar in appearance to the 

 terebinth ; 93 a similarity which extends to the seed even, said 

 to be remarkably efficacious for healing wounds made by 

 arrows. The same island produces tragacanthe 93 also, with a 

 root which resembles that of the white thorn ; it is very much 

 preferred M to that which is grown in Media or in Achaia ; the 

 price at which it sells is three denarii per pound. 



CHAP. 37. THE TEAGOS OB SCOBPIO ; THE MrEICA OE BETA J THE 



OSTEYS. 



Asia, too, produces the tragos 95 or scorpio, a thorny shrub, 

 destitute of leaves, with red clusters upon it that are employed 

 in medicine. Italy produces the myrica, which some persons 

 cali the "tamarix;" 96 and Achaia, the wild brya, 97 remarkable 

 for the circumstance that it is only the cultivated kind that 

 bears a fruit, not unlike the gall-nut. In Syria and Egypt 

 this plant is very abundant. It is to the trees of this last 

 country that we give the name of " unhappy ;" 98 but yet those 

 of Greece are more unhappy still, for that country produces the 

 tree known as " ostrys," or, as it is sometimes called, "ostrya," " 

 a solitary tree that grows about rocks washed by the water, 

 and very similar in the bark and branches to the ash. It re- 



31 See B. xxvii. c. 115. 



92 He says elsewhere that it is like the juniper, which, however, is not 

 the case. Guettard thinks that the tragion is the Androsremon fetidum, 

 the Hyperium hircinum of the modern botanists. Sprengel also adopts 

 the same opinion. Fee is inclined to think that it was a variety of the 

 Pistacia lentiscus. 



93 Goat's thorn. The Astragalus Creticus of Linnaeus. 



94 He speaks of gum tragacanth. 



95 See B. xxvii. c. 11G. Sprengel identifies it with the Salsola tragus 

 of Linnaeus. 



96 Probably the Tamarix Gallica of Linnaeus. Fee says, in relation to 

 the myrica, that it would seem that the ancients united in one collective 

 name, several plants which resembled each other, not in their botanical 

 characteristics, but in outward appearance. To this, he says, is owing 

 the fact that Dioscorides calls the myrica a tree, Favorinus a herb ; 

 Dioscorides says that it is fruitful, Nicander and Pliny call it barren ; 

 Yirgil calls it small, and Theophrastus says that it is large. 



97 Fee thinks that it is the Tamarix onentalis of Delille. 



98 " Infelix," meaning '•' sterile." He seems to say this more particularly 

 in reference to the brya, which Egypt produces. As to this use of the word 

 "infelix," see B. xvi. c. 46. 



99 Sprengel and Fee identify this with the Ostrya vulgaris of Willdenow, 

 the Carpinus ostrya of Linnseus. 



