BOOK XXI. xxxiv. 60-xxxvi. 62 



accord, reproducing itself by layers from the head. 

 It is however grown from seed better than from the 

 root or from slips ; from seed too not without trouble. 

 The seedlings are transplanted — as is the adonium " 

 — both in summer. For they are very chilly plants, 

 yet Hable to be injured by too much sun. But 

 when they have grown strong, they sprout after the 

 manner of rue. Like southernwood in scent is leucan- 

 themum, with a white flower and abundant leaves. 



XXXV. Diocles the physician and the people of sweei 

 Sicily have called sweet marjoram the plant known in """>"■"'" 

 Egypt as sampsucum. It is reproduced by the two 

 methods, from seed and from branch-cuttings, being 

 longer-Hved than the plants mentioned above and of 



a milder scent. Sweet marjoram produces as copious 

 a quantity of seed as does southernwood, but the latter 

 has one root penetrating deep into the earth, while 

 tlie roots of the others ** cHng Hghtly to the surface 

 of the ground. The planting of the rest takes place 

 generaUy in the beginning of autumn, and also, in 

 some phices, in spi-ing, and they deHght in shade, 

 water and dung.^ 



XXXVI. Nyctegreton '' was one of a few plants syctcijreion. 

 chosen for special admiration by Democritus ; it is of 



a dark-red colour, with a leaf Hke a thorn, and not 

 rising high from the ground ; a special kind grows 

 in Gedrosia. He reports that it is pulled up by the 



t6 fXf'vinv imTToXaiOVS kuI noXvaxiBi^S Kal TappcoSeis- So 

 without (loubt reteris must stand. Detlefsen's haerentibu-s, 

 referring to the other roots of southernwood, is based on 

 the words of Theophrastus after ixov6ppi.l,ov, namely, Ta.s S' 

 aXXas a(j)lrjaiv an avrijs. 



■^ Theophrastus, H.P. VI. 7, 6 : aTTavra <f)LX6aKia Kal (biXvSpa 

 Kai cftiXoKOTTpa i^LdXiara suggests omnia umbra gaudent, etc. 



■^ " Night-watcher." 



205 



