ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, IX. xv. 3-6 



of blood, some say if the vein is merely pricked, 

 others even if it is deeply cut into. 1 These then 

 of the places outside Hellas are those that are most 

 productive of drugs. 



2 Of places in Hellas those most productive of drugs 

 are Pelion in Thessaly, Telethrion in Euboea, Parnas- 

 sus, and also Arcadia and Laconia, for both these 

 states produce medicinal herbs ; wherefore the Arca- 

 dians are accustomed, instead of drinking medicine, 

 to drink milk in spring when the juices of such plants 

 are at their best, for then the milk has most medi- 

 cinal virtue. It is cows' milk that they drink, since 

 it appears that the cow eats more than any other 

 animal and is more impartial as to what she eats. 



3 Both kinds of hellebore, the white and the black, 

 grow in their country, and also carrot, 4 a saffron- 

 coloured plant like bay, and a plant which the 

 Arcadians call ( wild cabbage ' 5 (spurge) but some 

 physicians kerdis ; also a plant called by some marsh 

 mallow, 6 also birthwort hartwort alexanders sulphur- 

 wort Herakleia, and both kinds of stry/chnos, 7 that 

 which has a scarlet and that which has a black fruit. 



There also grow there the ' wild cucumber ' 

 (squirting cucumber), of which the drug ' driver ' 8 

 is compounded, and the tithymallos (spurge) of which 

 hippophacs 9 is made ; this is best about Tegea, and 

 that kind is much sought after; it grows there in 



4 tiavKov. This name recurs 8 and 9. 20. 2. Text must 

 be defective here: the epithets are unintelligible, and 

 perhaps belong to another plant whose name has dropped 

 out. See Index. 



5 cf. 9. 12. 1. and Index. 



6 a\eaiav conj. Sch., cf. 9. 18. 1 ; a\6fav Aid. cf. Plin. 20. 222. 



7 cf. 9. 11.5. 8 cf, 9. 9 4 ; 9. 14. 1. 



9 nrTro</>aes is elsewhere the name of a plant : cf. Diosc. 4. 159. 

 e| ov may be corrupt, or the text defective. 



293 



