BOOK XXI. Li. 87-Ln. 89 



boiled and chewed breaks up into spidery threads, 

 but the stem itself is handsome, jutting out from 

 leaves which, even when compared with those of 

 trees, are very broad, similar to the leaves called 

 personata " which are found in Italian rivers. So 

 much do the people of the Nile appreciate the 

 bounty of their river that they plait colocasia leaves 

 into vessels of various shapes, which they consider 

 make attractive goblets. The colocasia is now grown 

 in Italy. 



IJI. In Kgypt next in esteem after colocasia chicory. 

 comes chicory, whicli I have spoken of as wild 

 endive. It appears after the Pleiades * and its parts 

 bloom in succession. It has a tough root, so that it 

 is even used to make binding ropes. Farther from ,„, ^ 

 the river grows anthahum, or the size and roundness 'lanpiaiiis. 

 of a medlar, without kernel or peel, and with the 

 leaf of the cyperus." They roast it at a fire and eat 

 it. They eat too oetum, which has few and very 

 small leaves, but a lai'ge root. Arachidne indeed 

 and aracos, though they have manifold, branchy 

 roots, have neither leaf nor any green, nor anything 

 else at all above ground. The rest of the plants 

 commonly included by the Egyptians among their 

 foods are thus named : — chondrylla, hypochocris, 

 caucaUs, enthryscum, scandix, called by some 

 tragopogon,** which has leaves very Hke those of 

 saffron, parthenium, trychnum, corchorus, aphace 

 and achynops, the last two appearing just after the 

 equinox. There is a plant called epipetron which 

 never bk)ssoms. But on the other hand aphace, as 

 its flowers fade, puts forth continually others all the 

 winter and all the spring, right on into summer, 



* See p. xxii. " Sweet rush. ■* Goat's beard. 



225 



