360 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



the ringworm. Taken internally, he says, it is 

 a remedy for the jaundice ; even that which 

 is occasioned by the inflammation of the liver. 



Lord Bacon mentions a sweet moss that 

 grew upon apple-trees, and which, he says, 

 bore a high price in the shops of the per- 

 fumers. As we do not meet with it in the 

 herbals of his day, we conclude that the 

 learned chancellor copied the account from 

 Pliny, with whose works he seems to have 

 been perfectly acquainted, and to have made 

 ample use of them in his Natural History. 

 Pliny notices the sweet moss *, and says the 

 best is found in the province of Cyrene,* the 

 next in Cyprus, the third in Phoenicia : it 

 grows also, says this author, in Egypt and in 

 Gaul. It was used by the Roman ladies in 

 their baths. When stamped with juniper, 

 and drunk in wine, it was esteemed good in 

 dropsical complaints. *f 



The species of moss called by Tournefort, 

 Muscus squamosas abietiformis, of which Dillen 

 gives the figure under the name of Selago, 

 is a purgative and an emetic as violent as the 

 hellebore. The greatest part of mosses are 

 relaxing, destroy worms, and promote perspi- 

 ration. 



* Book xii, c.23. t Book xxiv. c. 6. 



