BOOK XIX. xLvii. 160-XLV111. 163 



of all the seasonings which gratify * a fastidious taste, 

 cummin is the most agreeable. It grows on the 

 surface of the ground, hardly adhering to the soil and 

 stretching iipward, and it should be sown in the middle 

 of spring, in crumbly and specially warm soils. 

 Another kind of cummin is the wild variety called 

 country cummin, or by other people Thebaic* cummin. 

 For pounding up in water and using as a draught in 

 cases of stomach-ache the most highly esteemed kind 

 in our continent is that grown at Carpetania, though 

 elsewhere the prize is awarded to Ethiopian and 

 African cummin ; however some prefer the Egyptian 

 to the African. 



XLVni. Aherbofexceptionallyremarkablenature AirTanders 

 is black-herb/ the Greek name for which is horse- *^"^"^" 

 parsley, and which others call zmyrnium. It is 

 reproduced from the gum that trickles from its own 

 stalk, but it can also be grown from a root. The 

 people who collect its juice say that it tastes like 

 rayrrh, and Theophrastus "* states that it sprang first 

 from sown myrrh seed. Old writers had recom- 

 mended sowing horse-parsley in uncultivated stony 

 ground near a garden wall ; but at the present day 

 it is so\vn in land that has been dug over and also 

 after a west wind has followed the autumn equinox. 

 The reason for the old plan was that the caper also 

 is sown principally in dry places, after a plot has 

 been hollowed out for deep digging and stone banks 

 have been built all round it : otherwise it strays all 

 over the fields and takes the fertiHty out of tlie soil. 

 It blossoms in summer and continues green till the 

 setting of the Pleiads ; it is most at home in sandy 

 soil. The bad quahties of the caper that grows over 

 seas we have spoken of among the exotic shrubs. xiii. 127. 



525 



