416 pliny's natural history. [Book XXII. 



''callitrichos,"^ and others of ''polytrichos," both of tliem 

 bearing reference to its property of imparting colour to the 

 hair. For this purpose, a decoction of it is made in wine 

 with parsley-seed, large quantities of oil being added, if it is 

 desired to make the hair thick and curly as well : it has also 

 the property of preventing the hair from coming off. 



There are two kinds of this plant, one being whiter than, 

 the other, which last is swarthy and more stunted. It is the 

 larger kind that is known as the *' polytrichos," or, as some 

 call it, the *' trichomanes." Both plants have tiny branches 

 of a bright black colour, and leaves like those of fern, the 

 lower ones being rough and tawny, and all of them lying close 

 together and attached to footstalks arranged on either side of 

 the stem : of root, so to say, there is nothing.*^ This plant 

 frequents umbrageous rocks, walls sprinkled with the spray 

 of running water, grottoes of fountains more particularly, and 

 crags surrounded with streamlets, a fact that is all the more 

 remarkable in a plant which derives no benefit from water. 



The adiantum is of singular efficacy in expelling and break- 

 ing calculi of the bladder, the dark kind in particular ; and it 

 is for this reason, in my opinion, rather than because it grows 

 upon stones, that it has received from the people of our 

 country its name of ^' saxifragum."^^ It is taken in wine, the 

 usual dose being a pinch of it in three fingers. Both these 

 plants are diuretics, and act as an antidote to the venom of ser- 

 pents and spiders : a decoction of them in wine arrests looseness 

 of the bowels. A wreath of them, worn on the head, alleviates 

 head-ache. For the bite of the scolopendra they are applied 

 topically, but they must be removed every now and then, to 

 prevent them from cauterizing the flesh : ^^ they are employed 

 in a similar manner also for alopecy.®^ They disperse 

 scrofulous sores, scurf on the face, and running ulcers of the 

 head. A decoction of them is useful also for asthma, affec- 

 tions of the liver and spleen, enlarged secretions of the gall, 



" "Fine hair," and "thick hair." These names originated more pro- 

 bably in the appearance of the plant than in any effects it may have pro- 

 duced as a dye for the hair. 



^■'' On the contrary, Fee says, the root is composed of numerous fibres, 



^' "Stone-breaking." 



^'^ Fee is of opinion that they possess no such property. 



*^ Loss of the hair. 



