in Greek and Latin Authors. 3£> 



" One piece of wood is rubbed against another, and the fric- 

 tion sets them on fire, which is augmented by dry tinder 

 (" aridi fomitis "), especially by that of fungi and leaves " 

 (xvi. 40). The fungus was probably steeped in sulphur, 

 sulphur-matches being known to the Romans under the name 

 of sulfurata ramenta or sulfurata (cf. Mart. Ep. x. 3, and i. 

 42). 



Pliny mentions the Agaricum again, in cap. xxv. 9, as 

 growing as a fungus " on trees round the Bosphorus : it is of 

 white colour ; it is given in four-obol doses mixed with two 

 cyathi of honey and vinegar. That which grows in Gaul is 

 considered an inferior kind. The male is thicker and more 

 bitter than the female ; it cures headaches : the female, which 

 is of looser texture, is at first sweet to the taste and as it is 

 swallowed it leaves a bitter taste." This is nothing more 

 than an abridgment of what Dioscorides has said. Of its 

 use in medicine Dr. Badham writes : — " The Polyporus lands 

 [P. officinalis], the so-called Agaric of pharmacy, is a power- 

 ful but most uncertain medicine, and has been recommended 

 in consumption. I once administered a few grains of it in 

 this disease, when violent pains and hypercatharsis super- 

 vened, which lasted for several hours. MM. B. Lagrange and 

 Braconnot found it to conrain a large quantity of acrid resin, 

 to which it no doubt owes its hypercathartic properties. To 

 judge from this single case, which, however, tallies with the 

 experience of others, I should say that this fungus was in 

 medicine to be looked upon as a very suspicious ally " (' Es- 

 culent Funguses,' p. 26). 



Pliny (xix. 3) mentions fungi known as pezicoe, by the 

 Greeks ; they grow without root or stalk. The Greek forms 

 of 7T€^t?, to? and 7re£i£, j/co<? occur in Theophrastus and Athe- 

 naeus. The former says nothing whatever about the 7re£i?, 

 except that it has no root; but Athenaius quotes Theophras- 

 tus as saying that the 7re£t<?, together with the vSvov, /xvk7)^, 

 and yepdveioVj has a smooth skin, Xeto^Xota. Lenz, in a 

 footnote (Botanik der alt. Gr. u. R. p. 755), writes : — " The 

 7re£t9 of Theophrastus and the pezica of Pliny are without 

 doubt the bovista ('die Boviste')." He compares the 

 modern Italian name vescia, both in sound and meaning, with 

 the Greek ire^. The \ei.6(fi\oia of Theophrastus would 

 seem to point to the smooth-skinned Li/coperdon giganteum. 



Juvenal's notices of fungi are chiefly confined to the boletus 

 which w r as instrumental in poisoning Claudius Caesar, viz. 

 the Amanita Casarea of modem mycologists ; he calls all other 

 fungi " ancipites " : — 



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