BOOK XXV. XXXVI. 74-xxxvii. 76 



slender leaves, growing only near the sea-side. 

 There are some who in inland districts call by the 

 same name a plant with a single stem, very small 

 leaves, abundant blossom bursting out when the 

 grapes are ripening, and with a not unpleasant smell. 

 The sort that some call botrys, and others ambrosia, 

 grows in Cappadocia." 



XXXVII. According to tradition nymphaea was Nymphaea. 

 born of a nymph who died of jealousy about Hercules 

 — for this reason some call it heracleon, others 

 rhopalon because its root is Hke a club — and therefore 

 those who have taken it in drink for twelve days are 

 incapable of intercourse and procreation.'' The most 

 valued kind grows in the district of Orchomenos and 

 at Marathon. The Boeotians call it mallon,'^ and eat 

 the seed. It grows in watery places, with large 

 leaves on the top of the water and others growing out 

 of the root ; the flowers are hke the hly, and when 

 the blossom is finished a head forms like that of the 

 poppy ; the stem is smooth.'' In autumn is cut the 

 root, which is dark, and is dried in the sun. It 

 reduces the spleen. There is another kind of 

 nymphaea growing in the River Penius '^ in Thessaly. 

 It has a white root, and a yellow head of the size of a 

 rose. 



thought that permanent impotence followed several doses, 

 for he adds that a single dose produces it for forty days. 



" Hermolaus Barbarus conjectured madoyi from Theophrastus 

 IX. 13, 1. 



"* If we read in caule the translation will be " a head hke 

 a poppy's forms on the stem." Hardouin adopted an old 

 conjecture tenui : " the stem is slender." 



• The Penius is a river of Colchis : the ThessaHan river is 

 the Peneus. Probably the mistake is PHny'8, but one MS. (d) 

 reads Peneo. 



191 



