Chap. 30.] THE ADIANTUM. 415 



grains of the seed, taken in drink, are said to be a cure for the 

 quartan fever, and three for the tertian ; a similar efifect being 

 produced by carrying the plant three times round the patient, 

 and then laying it under his head. The seed, too, acts as an 

 aphrodisiac, and, applied with honey, it disperses inflamed 

 tumours. This kind of heliotropium, as well as the other, ex- 

 tracts warts radically,^" and excrescences of the anus. Applied 

 topically, the seed draws off corrupt blood from the vertebrae 

 and loins ; and a similar effect is produced by taking a decoc- 

 tion of it in chicken broth, or with beet and lentils. The 

 husks ^^ of the seed restore the natural colour to lividities of 

 the skin. According to the Magi, the patient himself should 

 make four knots in the heliotropium for a quartan, and three 

 for a tertian fever, at the same time offering a prayer that he 

 may recover to untie them, the plant being left in the ground 

 meanwhile. 



CUAP, 30. THE ADIANTUM, CALLITRICHOS, TRICnOMA^ES, POLT- 



TKTCHOS, OR SaXIFKAGUM ; TWO VARIETIES OF IT : TWENTY- 

 EIGHT REMEDIES. 



Equally marvellous, too, in other respects, is the adian- 

 tum f- it is green in summer, never dies in the winter, mani- 

 fests an aversion to water, and, when sprinkled with water or 

 dipped in it, has all the appearance of having been dried, so 

 great is its antipathy to moisture ; a circumstance to which it 

 owes the name of " adiantum,"®^ given to it by the Greeks. 

 In other respects, it is a shrub which might be well employed 

 in ornamental gardening. ^^ Some persons give it the name of 



^^^ This notion, Fee says, was long attached to the Heliotropium Euro- 

 pseum, and to it, it is indebted for its present name of " verrucaria." 



•"^ " Cortex seminis," 



'^ Fee identifies it with the Asplenium trichomanes of Linnseus, spleen- 

 wort, or ccterach. The Adiantum of Hippocrates and other Greek writers, 

 he takes to be the Adiantum capillus Veneris of Linmeus, Venus' hair, or 

 maiden hair. Though Pliny would seem not to have been acquainted 

 with the hitter plant, he ascribes to the first one many of its properties and 

 characteristics, deriving his information, probably, from a writer who was 

 acquainted with both. See B. xxi. c. 60. 



^'^ From o, " not," ^nd diaivui, " to wet." This is owing, Fee re- 

 marks, to the coat of waxen enamel or varnisli with which the leaves are 

 provided. The same is the case also vnth the leaf of the cabbage and 

 other plants. 



^ The Asplenium trichomanes, Fee says, would not admit of being 

 clipped for ornamental gardening. 



