332 PLINY'S NATUBAL HISTORY. [Book XXI. 



for the bee-keepers have reason to look for a large crop when 

 the thyme blossoms in considerable abundance. Thyme re- 

 ceives great injury from showers of rain, and is very apt to 

 shed its blossom. The seed of thyme is so minute 13 as to be 

 imperceptible, and yet that of origanum, which is also ex- 

 tremely minute, do^s not escape the sight. But what matters 

 it that Nature has thus concealed it from our view ? For we 

 have reason to conclude that it exists in the flower itself; 

 which, when sown in the ground, gives birth to the plant 

 what is there, in fact, that the industry of man has left 

 untried ? 



The honey of Attica is generally looked upon as the best in 

 all t^e world ; for which reason it is that the thyme of that 

 country has been transplanted, being reproduced, as already 

 stated, with the greatest difficulty, from the blossom. But 

 there is also another peculiarity in the nature of the thyme of 

 Attica, which has greatly tended to frustrate these attempts- 

 it will never live except in the vicinity of breezes from the 

 sea. In former times, it was the general belief that this is tha 

 case with all kinds of thyme, and that this is the reason why 

 it does not grow in Arcadia : u at a period when it was univer- 

 sally supposed, too, that the olive never grows beyond three 

 hundred stadia 15 from the sea. But, at the present day, we 

 know for certain that in the province of Gallia Narbonensis 

 the Stony Plains 16 are quite overgrown with thyme ; this being, 

 in fact, the only source of revenue to those parts, thousands 

 of sheep 17 being brought thither from distant countries to 

 browse upon the plant. 



CHAP. 32. CONYZA. 



There are two varieties of conyza, also, employed in making 



13 From Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. vi. c. 2, and De Causis, B. i. 

 c. 5. Fee suggests, that the seed, lying at the bottom of the calyx, may 

 have escaped notice, and that in reality, when the ancients imagined they 

 were sowing the blossoms, they were putting the seed in the earth. That, 

 in fact, seems to agree with the view which Pliny takes of the matter. 



14 Which lies in the interior of the Peloponnesus. 



15 See B. xv. c. 1. 



16 "Lapidei Campi." See B. iii. c. 5. 



17 Similar to our practice of depasturing sheep on Dartmoor and other 

 favourito moors and downs. 



