142 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XIX. 



grows on the banks of rivers, and which encloses between the 

 outer coat and the portion that is eaten a sort of woolly sub- 

 stance, of which felt socks, and other articles of dress, are made ; 

 but, in the copies, those at least which have fallen in my way, 

 there is no mention made of the country in which it grows, or 

 of any details in connection with it, beyond the fact that 

 the name given to it is " eriophoron." 71 As to spartum, 

 he makes no 72 mention of it whatever, although he has given 

 the history, with the greatest exactness, of all the known 

 plants, three hundred and ninety years before our time a fact 

 to which I have already 73 alluded on other occasions : from 

 this it would appear that spartum has come into use since his 

 day. 



CHAP. 11. PLANTS WHICH SPRING UP AND GROW WITHOUT A 



ROOT PLANTS WHICH GROW, BUT CANNOT BE REPRODUCED FROM 



SEED. 



As we have here made a beginning of treating of the marvels 

 of Mature, we shall proceed to examine them in detail ; and 

 among them the very greatest of all, Jbeyond a doubt, is the 

 fact that any plant should spring up and grow without a root. 

 Such, for instance, is the vegetable production known as the 

 truffle; 74 surrounded on every side by earth, it is connected 

 with it by no fibres, not so much as a single: thread even, while 

 the spot in which it grows, presents neither protuberance nor 

 cleft to the view. It is found, in fact, in no way adhering to 

 the earth, but enclosed within an outer coat ; so much so, in- 

 deed, that though we cannot exactly pronounce it to be com- 

 posed of earth, we must conclude that it is nothing else but a 

 callous 75 concretion of the earth. 



71 Fee is at a loss to identify this plant, but considers it quite clear 

 tliat it is not the same with the Eriophorum augusti folium of Linnseus, a 

 cyperaceous plant, of which the characteristics are totally different. Do- 

 dona3us, however, was inclined to consider them identical. 



72 On the contrary, Theophrastus does mention it, in the Hist. Plant. 

 B. i. c. 8, and speaks of it as having a bark composed of several tunics or 

 membranes. 



In ]]. xiii. c. 13, and B. xv. c. 1. 



74 " Tuber." The Tuber cibarium of Linnaeus, the black truffle ; and 

 probably the grey truffle, the Tuber griseum. 



75 This callous secretion of the earth, or corticle, is, as Fee says, a sort 

 of hymenium, formed of vesicles, which, as they develope themselves, are 



