BOOK X\'I. Lxiii. 154-LXIV. 158 



stone. This plant is unlucky to use at all sacred 

 rites and for wrcaths, because it has a mournful 

 association, a maiden named Smilax having been 

 turned into a smilax shrub because of her love for 

 a youth named Crocus. The common people not 

 knowing this usually pollute their festivals with it 

 because they think that it is ivy ; just as in the case 

 of the poets or Father Liber or Silenus, who wear 

 wreaths made of who in the world knows what ? 



Smilax is used for making tablets ; it is a pecu- 

 harity of this wood to give out a slight sound when 

 placed to one's ear. It is said that ivy has a remarkable 

 property ^ for testing wines, inasmuch as a vessel made 

 of its wood allows wine to pass through it, water that 

 has been mixed with the wine stops in the vessel. 



LXIV. Among the plants that Uke cold conditions Water- 

 it may also be proper to have the aquatic shrubs p^""*^- 

 mentioned. The primacy among these will be held rherecd, 

 by the reeds, which are indispensable for the practices andZtT 

 of war and of peace and are also acceptable for our 

 amusement.^ The northern peoples thatch their 

 homes with reeds, and roofs of this kind last for 

 ages, while in other parts of the world as well 

 reeds also provide very light ccilings for rooms. 

 And reeds serve as pens for writing on paper, 

 especially Egyptian reeds owing to their kinship 

 as it were with the papyrus ; *^ although the reeds 

 of Cnidus and those that grow round the Anaetic 

 lake in Asia are more esteemed. Those of our 

 country have a more fungous substance underneath 

 the surface, made of spongy cartilage which has a 

 hollow structure inside and a thin, dry, woody 

 surface, and easily breaks into splinters which always 

 have an extremely sharp edge. For the rest it is 



489 



