BOOK XXV. xLvi. 84-xLix. 87 



stomach and the eyesight. So great is its fame that 

 the home in which it has been planted is considered 

 to be safe from all dangers.'* 



XLVII. In Spain too was discovered cantabrica, cantabriei 

 found by the Cantabri in the period of the late 

 Emperor Augustus. It grows everywhere, having 

 a rush-hke stem a foot in length, on whieh are small, 

 longish * flowers, shaped Hke a work-basket, in 

 which are very tiny seeds. Nor have the Spains 

 been backward in other search after plants ; for 

 example, even now today it is the custom at the more 

 festive gatherings, to mix a drink, the " hundred- 

 plant potion ", by adding to honev wine a hundred 

 plants, in the behef that such is both very healthful 

 and very pleasant. Nobody, however, now knows 

 the kinds of plants used and their exact number, 

 although a definite number is given in the name."^ 



XLVIII. Our own generation remembers the ConsiUgo. 

 discovery of a plant among the Marsi. It grows also 

 among the AequicoU around the village of Nervesia, 

 and is called consiligo. It is beneficial, as we shall 

 point out in its own place,'' in desperate cases of 

 consumption. ' 



XLIX. Servilius Democrates also, one of our fore- mberis. 

 most physicians, recently discovered the value of 

 what he called hiberis, although in the verses he 

 wrote on its discovery he assigned this to an imaginary 

 person.* It grows chiefly near old monuments, ruins, 

 and the waste land beside highways. It is an ever- 

 green, with leaves hke cress, a stem a cubit high, and 

 with seed/ that can scarcely be seen. The root has the 

 smell of cress. It is used more efiicaciously in sum- 



to think that the meaning is: "dedicating a poem to its dia- 

 covery under a fictitious name ". f Or " fruiting-head". 



199 



