The Rock Roses 



finde any other who will take the paines to gather it 

 . . . . besides the Greeke Monkes." 



An old tradition existed that ladanum was gathered 

 from the beards of goats, but Gerard dismisses the legend 

 contemptuously as "an old fable of the lying monks 

 themselves, who of very mockery have foisted that fable 

 among others extant in their workes." Still there is no 

 inherent improbability of the goats' beards serving the 

 purpose of the aforesaid rakes, as the animals browsed 

 upon the hills of Greece and Asia Minor, those " hills 

 green with flowering shrubs, and in particular with 

 labdanum." (Labdanum is a corruption, often found, 

 of ladanum). 



As a spice ladanum had its recognised place. 

 Herrick (1618) in one of his poems says, 



"How can I chuse but kiss her whence do's come 

 The storax, spikenard, myrrhe and ladanum ? " 



and Browning refers to " sandal buds and stripes of 

 labdanum" in "Paracelsus." Thompson's Herbal of a 

 century ago describes two kinds of ladanum : the best, 

 very rare, appeared as soft, almost black masses, which 

 became softer on handling, with a very pleasant smell 

 and bitterish pungent taste ; the inferior quality contained 

 a large admixture of sand, had much less smell and 

 taste, and was in long, hard, coiled rolls. It also figures 

 there as chief ingredient in " a very elegant stomach 

 plaster," by means of which "consumption from colds 



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