ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, VII. xiv. i-xv. i 



especially in damp places. Some think that 

 irikhomanes l (English maidenhair) is also useful in 

 cases of strangury. Its stem is like that of the black 

 kind,, but it has small leaves, which are close set and 

 grow in opposite pairs ; there is no root below, and 

 the plant loves shady places. 



Of those plants which do not flower all at once 

 anthemon has the peculiarity that, while in all others 2 

 the lower part flowers first, in this plant it is the 

 upper part which does so ; the outer circle of the 

 flower is white, 3 and the centre green 4 ; and the 

 fruit falls off, as in spinous plants, leaving the attach- 

 ment bare. There are several forms of it. 



5 Bedstra\v has the peculiarity that it sticks to 

 clothes owing to its roughness, and it is hard to pull 

 away ; indeed it is in this rough part that the flower is 

 contained : it does not project nor show, but matures 

 within itself and produces seed ; so that its habit is 

 like that of weasels and sharks ; for, as these animals c 

 likewise produce eggs in themselves and then bear 

 their young alive, so this plant keeps its flower 

 within itself, matures it and produces fruit. 



XV. 7 As to these plants whose flowering time is 

 dependent on the heavenly bodies, 8 as the plant 

 called heliotropion, golden thistle (for this also blooms 

 at the solstice), and also ' swallow-plant ' (greater 

 celandine) for this blooms when the 9 Swallow-wind 

 blows the reason in these cases would seem to be 

 partly in their nature and partly accidental. 



2 fSiov after iravrcDv om. W. after Sch. 



3 Tb Xtvnbv : ? Aet'/c^ rb. 4 ? om. rJ> before x^ u P^ 

 5 Plin. 21. 104. 6 cf. Arist. H.A. 6. 11. 



7 Athen. 15. 32. 8 &<rrpois conj. St. ; aypiois Aid. 



9 T conj. Sch.; TT) MAld. cf. Plin. 2. 122. 



137 



