Chap. 30.] BULES, SQUILLS, AND ARUM. 169 



dicinal properties ; of which we shall have occasion lo speak 

 more at length in the succeeding Book.-^ 



The other species of bulbs are distinguished by their colour, 

 size, and sweetness ; indeed, there are some that are eaten raw 

 even — those found in the Tauric Chersonesus, for instance. 

 Next to these, the bulbs of Africa are held in the highest 

 esteem, and after them those of Apulia. The Greeks have 

 distinguished the following varieties : the bulbine,-^ the seta- 

 iiion,'"* the opition,-^ the cyix,^° the leucoion,^^ the aegilips,^^ and 

 the sisyrinchion^^ — in the last there is this remarkable feature, 

 that the extremities of the roots increase in winter, but during 

 the spring, when the violet appears, they diminish in size and 

 gradually contract, and then it is that the bulb begins to in- 

 crease in magnitude. 



Among the varieties of the bulb, too, there is the plant 

 known in Egypt by the name of *' aron."^* In size it is very 

 nearly as large as the squill, with a leaf like that of lapathum, 

 and a straight stalk a couple of cubits in length, and the thick- 

 ness of a walking-stick : the root of it is of a milder nature, 

 so much so, indeed, as to admit of being eaten raw. 



Bulbs are taken up before the spring, for if not, they are 

 apt to spoil very quickly. It is a sign that they are ripe when 

 the leaves become dry at the lower extremities. When too 

 old they are held in disesteem ; the same, too, with the long 

 and the smaller ones ; those, on the other hand, which are red 

 and round are greatly preferred, as also those of the largest 

 size. In most of them there is a certain degree of pungency 

 in the upper part, but the middle is sweet. The ancients have 



26 In c. 39. 



-^ Fee thinks that this may be the Muscaria botryo'ides of Miller, Lict. 

 Ko. I. See also 13. xx. c. 41. 



-^ A variety, probably, of the common onion, the Allium cepa of Linnaeus. 



29 Some variety of the genus Allium, Fee thinks. 



^ Fee queries whether this may not be some cyperaceous plant witli a 

 bulbous root. 



3^ A white bulb, if we may judge from the name. The whole of this 

 passage is from Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. vii. c. 11. 



•*- This has not been identified. The old reading was *'segilops," a 

 name now given to a kind of grass. 



•*■* The Iris sisyrinchium of Linnaeus. 



•'^^ The Arum colocasia of Linnaeus, held in great esteem by fhe ancient 

 Egyptians as a vegetable. The root is not a bulb, but tubercular, and the 

 leaf bears no resemblance to that of the Lapathum, dock or sorrel. It 

 was sometimes known by the name of "lotus." 



