Chap. 10.] DIFFERENT KINDS OF GRAItf. 23 



is smooth. * * * In the bean, again, the chick-pea, and the 

 pea, the leaves are numerous and divided. In corn the leaf 

 is similar to that of the reed, while in the hean it is round, as 

 also in a great proportion of the leguminous plants. In the 

 erviliu 15 and the pea the leaf is long, 16 in the kidney-bean 

 veined, and in sesame 17 and irio the colour of blood. The 

 lupine and the poppy are the only ones among these plants that 

 lose 18 their leaves. 



The leguminous plants remain a longer time in flower, the 

 fitch and the chick-pea more particularly ; but the bean is in 

 blossom the longest of them all, for the flower remains on it 

 forty days ; not, indeed, that each stalk retains its blossom 

 for all that length of time, but, as the flower goes off in 

 one, it comes on in another. In the bean, too, the crop is not 

 ripe all at once, as is the case with corn ; for the pods make 

 their appearance at different times, at the lowest parts first, 

 the blossom mounting upwards by degrees. 



When the blossom is off in corn, the stalk gradually thickens, 

 and it ripens within forty days at the most. The same is the 

 case, too, with the bean, but the chick-pea takes a much shorter 

 time to ripen ; indeed, it is fit for gathering within forty days 

 from the time that it is sown. Millet, panic, sesame, and all the 

 summer grains are ripe within forty days after blossoming, 

 with considerable variations, of course, in reference to soil and 

 weather. Thus, in Egypt, we find barley cut at the end of 

 six months, and wheat at the end of seven, from the time of 

 sowing. In Hellas, again, barley is cut in the seventh month, 

 and in Peloponnesus in the eighth ; the wheat being got in at 

 a still later period. 



Those grains which grow on a stalk of straw are enclosed 

 in an envelope protected by a prickly beard ; while in the bean 

 and the leguminous plants in general they are enclosed in pods 

 upon branches which shoot alternately from either side. The 

 cereals are the best able to withstand the winter, but the legu- 

 minous plants afford the most substantial food. In wheat, the 



15 The same as the " Ervum" probably, the fitch, orobus, or bitter vetch. 



16 Not so with the pea, as known to us. 



17 This is only true at the end of the season, and when the plant is 

 dying. 



18 These annuals lose their leaves only that have articulations on the 

 stem ; otherwise they die outright at the fall of the leaf. 



