ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, VIII. vm. 3-5 



mingles with it, whether this is due to the soil, 

 which is a reasonable explanation, or to some other l 

 cause. Some plants of this character evidently attach 

 themselves to more than one kind of crop, but, 

 because they are specially vigorous in some one 

 particular crop, they are thought to be peculiar to 

 that one, as ' vetch-strangler ' (dodder) to vetches 

 and bedstraw to lentils. But the former gains the 

 mastery over the vetches especially because of the 

 weakness of that plant ; and bedstraw is specially 

 luxuriant among lentils ; to some extent it resembles 

 dodder, in that 2 it overspreads the whole plant and 

 holds it fast as it were in coils, 3 for it is thus that 

 dodder strangles the plant, and this is the origin of 

 its name (' vetch-strangler '). 



4 v The plant which springs up straight from the 

 roots of cummin and the plant called broom-rape 

 which .similarly attaches itself to e ox-horn ' 5 (fenu- 

 greek) are somewhat more peculiar in their habits. 6 

 Broom-rape has a single stem, 7 and is not unlike . . . , 8 

 but is much shorter and has on the top a sort of head, 

 while its root is more or less round ; and there is no 

 other plant which it starves except fenugreek. 

 These plants grow in light and not in fat soils ; thus 

 in Euboea they do not occur at Lelanton, 9 but only 

 about Kanethos 10 and in districts of like character. 



5 Plin. 24. 184. 

 6 



7 cf. G.P. 5. 15. 5, where the same is said of \ei/j.o8copov (c/. 

 Plin. 19. 176). But Aid. Bas. Cam. give al/n.6Swpov here ; hemo- 

 dorum G. 



8 r$ Kav\$ probably conceals the name of a plant. 



9 c/. Strabo, 10. 1, 9. L. is the name of a Euboean river in 

 Plin. 4. 64. 



10 c/. Strabo, 10. 1. 8, Ap. Rhod. 1. 77. 



195 

 o 2 



