BOEHMERIA 



789 



BOEOTIA 



Early in his career Boccaccio fell in love with 

 Maria, daughter of King Robert of Naples, and 

 his first work, a romantic love tale in prose, 

 Filocopo, was written at her command. The 

 Decameron, or Ten Days' Entertainments, on 

 which his fame rests, is a collection of one 

 hundred tales, supposed to have been related in 

 ten days by a party of ladies and gentlemen 

 who had withdrawn to a country house near 

 Florence while the plague was raging in that 

 city. In these tales Boccaccio reveals himself 

 as a master of the art of story-telling, and their 

 influence on later waiters was tremendous. 

 Vividly told and beautifully written, they are 

 marred only by the coarseness that was charac- 

 teristic of the age in which their author lived. 



BOEHMERIA , bo me ' ri ah, a group of plants 

 closely resembling the stinging nettle, several 

 species of which are of great service to man 

 because of their strong fiber. One of the most 

 important species, known as Chinese grass, 

 yields most of the fiber used by the Chinese in 

 making China-grass cloth, a glossy, transparent 

 fabric of great beauty. Chinese grass is a 

 non-stinging, herb-like plant with broad, oval 

 leaves which are white and downy beneath. 

 It is grown by seeds and by root division and 

 thrives in shady and moist ground, three crops 

 being raised each year. The fiber is removed 

 by hand stripping, by boiling the stalks in 

 water or by means of chemicals or by ma- 



where labor is cheap. The plant is cultivated 

 to a limited extent in the Southern United 

 States. 



Another species of boehmeria, commonly 

 known as ramie, or rhea, is an East Indian 

 shrub whose upright stem yields a firm, durable 

 fiber that is stronger than hemp and almost 

 as fine and lustrous as silk. This fiber is used 

 in making cordage, nets, fabrics and the paper 

 employed in the manufacture of banknotes. 

 The plant is grown by seeds, cuttings or root 

 division, and requires a hot, moist, even climate 

 and soil that is rich and damp. 



BOEOTIA, beo'shia, in ancient times a 

 division of Central Greece lying between Attica 



BOEHMERIA 

 Stalk, leaves, flower and seed pods. 



chinery, but hand labor has been found most 

 successful. Therefore most of the Chinese- 

 grass fiber is obtained from China and India, 



BOEOTIA (IN BLACK) 



North of ancient Attica, thus near Athens, 

 the center of old Greek culture. 



and Phocis, having an area of 1,100 square 

 miles. Its shores were washed by two arms of 

 the sea, the Corinthian Gulf to the west and 

 the Strait of Euboea to the east. The northern 

 portion of Boeotia formed the basin of Lake 

 Copai's, into which the Cephissus River flowed, 

 and south of the lake rose the Helicon Moun- 

 tains, famed in ancient legends as the seat of 

 worship of the Muses. The atmosphere of an- 

 cient Boeotia was heavy, the summers sultry 

 and the winters foggy, and the Boeotians 

 seemed to have been affected by the dullness 

 of their native air, for they were stolid, coarse 

 and unimaginative. In this respect they were 

 a striking contrast to their brilliant neighbors 

 of Attica, whose lofty achievements in art and 

 literature were in part inspired by the clear 

 air and exhilarating climate of their land. 



