112 pliny's natural HISTOUr. [Book XXV. 



Greece. This is a plant more highly esteemed than any other: it 

 puts fortli an angular stem two cubits in height, and throws out 

 leaves from the root, with serrated edges, and closely resembling 

 those of lapathum.^^ The seed of it is purple : the leaves are 

 dried and powdered, and used for numerous purposes. There 

 is a wine also prepared from it, and a vinegar, remarkably 

 beneficial to the stomach and the eyesight. Indeed, this plant 

 enjoys so extraordinary a reputation, that it is a common be- 

 lief even that the house which contains it is insured against 

 misfortunes of every kind. 



CHAP. 47. THE CANTABETCA : TWO EEMEDIES. 



In Spain, too, is found the cantahrica,^^ which was first dis- 

 covered by the nation of the Cantabri in the time of the late 

 Emperor Augustus. It grows everywhere in those parts, having 

 a stem like that of the bulrush, a foot in height, and bearing 

 small oblong flowers, like a calathus^^ in shape, and enclos- 

 ing an extremely diminutive seed. 



Nor indeed, in other respects, have the people of Spain 

 been wanting in their researches into the nature of plants ; for 

 at the present day even it is the custom in that country, at 

 their more jovial entertainments, to use a drink called the 

 hundred-plant drink, combined with a proportion of honied 

 wine; it being their belief, that the wine is rendered more whole- 

 some and agreeable by the admixture of these plants. It still 

 remains unknown to us, what these different plants are, or in 

 what number exactly they are used : as to this last question, 

 however, we may form some conclusion from the name that is 

 given to the beverage. 



CHAP. 48. CONSILIGO : ONE EEMEDT. 



Our own age, too, can remember the fact of a plant being 

 discovered in the country of the Marsi. It is found growing 

 also in the neighbourhood of the village of Nervesia, in the 

 territory of the ^quicoli, and is known by the na^ne of 



Greeks is a different plant from the Vettonica of the Romans, and identifies 

 it with the Sideritis Syriaca. ^- See B. xx. c. 85. 



^^ Phny is the only author that mentions the Cantabrica, and his account, 

 F^e thinks, is too meagre to enable us satisfactorily to identify it with the 

 Convolvulus cantabrica of Linnaeus. 



'^^ A conical work-basket or cup. See B. xxi. c. 11. 



