iccnr 



BOOK XXI. XV. 28-xvii. 31 



the caltha being strong." No less strong is the scent 

 of the plant which they call royal broom, though it 

 is not the flowers that smell, but the leaves." 



XVI. Baccar too, which is called by some field Bac 

 nard, has scent in the root only. That unguents used 



to be made by the ancients from this root we have a 

 witness in Aristophanes, a poet of the Old Comedy. 

 Whence some used to commit the error of caUing it 

 by a Greek name, baccaris." The scent is very 

 Hke that of cinnamon. It grows on a thin dry soil. 

 Very hke it is the plant called combretum,** taller 

 than the baccar, and with leaves so thin that they 

 are mere threads. These are only used as unguents.* 

 But the mistake of those also must be corrected who 

 have called baccar field nard. For there is another 

 plant with this surname, which the Greeks call 

 asaron, whose shape and appearance we have de- 

 scribed among the varieties of nard./ Moreover, I 

 find that the plant is styled asaron, because it is not 

 used in the making of chaplets. 



XVII. Wild saffron is better than any other. To Saffron. 

 grow it in Italy is most unprofitable, as a whole 



bed of saffron yields only a scruple of the essence. 

 It is propagated from a bulb of the root. The culti- 

 vated saffron is broader, larger and more handsome, 

 but much less potent; it is degenerating everywhere, 

 and is not prohfic even at Cyrene, where grows a 

 saffron whose flowers have always been very famous. 



"* A reed, perhaps Juncus maximus; cf. Vol. vn, Index of 

 Plants. 



' Mayhoff's haec sutilia tanlum would mean: " these are 

 only sewed on chaplets." The fragile leaves niight otherwise 

 break. 



^ XII. § 47. 



183 



