BOOK XXI. Lvi. 94-96 



LVI. The thistle has both leaf and stem covered T/usUes. 

 by a prickly down, and so have acorna, leucacanthos, 

 chalceos, cnecos, polyacanthos, onopyxos, helxine, 

 scolymos. The chamaeleon has no prickles on its 

 leaves. There is however this difference also, that 

 some of these plants have many stems and branches, 

 the thistle for instance, while the cnecos has one 

 stem and no branches. Some are prickly only at 

 the head, the erynge for instance ; some, hke 

 tetralix and helxine, blossom in summer. Scolymos 

 too blossoms late and long. The acorna is distin- 

 guished (from cnecos)" only by its reddish colour 

 and richer juice. Atractyhs too would be just the 

 same, were it not whiter and did it not shed a blood- 

 hke juice that has caused some to call it phonos ; ^ 

 it also has a bad " smell, and its seed ripens late — in 

 fact not before autumn, though this can be said of 

 all prickly plants. All of these however can be 

 reproduced either from seed or from the root. 

 Scolymus, one of the thistle group, difters from 

 these in that its root is edible when boiled. It is a 

 strange thing that in this group,** without inter- 

 mission throughout the whole summer,*' part blos- 

 soms, part buds, and part produces seed. As the 

 leaves dry the prickles cease to sting./ Helxine is 

 not often seen, and not in all countries ; it shoots 

 out leaves from its root, out of the middle of which 

 swells up as it were an apple, covered with foUage of 



' Theophrastus {loc. cit.) says of the sow-thistle : iJ-expi toG 

 Oepovs (sc. TrapaKoXovOei) t6 ^ev kvovv t6 8e dvdovv t6 Be OTrepfia 

 TiKTOv (I adopt Horfs reading and translation of to fiev, t6 



8.')- 



■^ Theophrastus (of the sow-thistle) ^iqpaivofievov 8e to 

 (f>vXXov BtaxeiTai Kal ovKeTt KevTei. 



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VOL. VI I 



