Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



The Rock Roses, or Cisten Roses, or Holly Roses, 

 or Gum Cistuses all these names are popularly theirs 

 are shrubs of the Mediterranean regions, particularly 

 abounding, perhaps, in Spain and Portugal ; and in cer- 

 tain species, e.g. C. ladaniferus, a remarkable stickiness 

 characterises their younger leaves and stems. They are, 

 in fact, "limed" with resin, the "liming" being destined 

 by the plant to trap all small creeping insects that might 

 attempt to make their way to the upper and flowering 

 regions of the shrub. But from ages immemorial this 

 gummy secretion has been coveted by man as a healing 

 balm, and in primitive ways he has collected it. 



Johnson's Gerard, 1623, which describes no fewer 

 than fourteen kinds of Cistus, recounts, in the words of 

 Bellonius, the manner of the gathering : " The Greekes 

 (saith he) for the gathering of Ladanum provide a pecu- 

 liar instrument which, in their vulgar tongue, they terme 

 Ergastiri. This is an instrument like to a rake without 

 teeth ; to this are fastened sundry thongs cut out of a raw 

 and untanned hide ; they gently rub these upon the Lada- 

 num-bearing shrubs that so the liquid moisture concrete 

 about the leaves may stick to them, which afterward 

 with knives they shave off these thongs in the heat of 

 the day. Wherefore the labour of gathering Ladanum 

 is exceeding great, yea intolerable, seeing they must of 

 necessity stay in the mountains all the day long in the 



greatest heat of the Dog-daies ; neither usually shall you 



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