BOOK XXV. Liv. 95-97 



tinffuishino^ four kinds of it : one with round tubers 

 on the root, and with leaves partly like those of the 

 mallow and partly like those of ivy, but darker and 

 softer : the second is the male plant,** with a long root 

 of four fingei's' length, thick as a walking-stick ; the 

 third is very long and as slender as a young vine, 

 with especially strong properties, and is called by 

 some clematitis and by other cretica. All kinds of 

 this plant are of the colour of boxwood, and have 

 small stems and purple blossom. They bear small 

 berries like caper berries. Only the root has medi- 

 cinal vahie. There is also a fourth kind, called 

 plistolochia, more slender than the one last mentioned, 

 with dense, hair-like masses for a root, and of the 

 thickness of a stoutish rush, which some surname 

 polyrrhizos. All kinds have a drug-like smell, but 

 that of the rather long *• and slender root is more 

 agreeable ; its fleshy outer skin in fact is even 

 suitable for nard ointments. These plants grow 

 on plains with a rich soil. The time to dig them up 

 is at harvest ; the earth is scraped oif them before 

 they are stored away.'' The most valued root, how- 

 ever, comes from Pontus, and in every case the 

 heaviest specimens are preferred ; for medicines the 

 round is more suitable, for snake bites the longer 



hard to reconcile the phrase just quoted with Phny's des- 

 cription of clematitis in § 95. 



" MayhofF's emendation would mean : " they are stored 

 away in earth scraped off them". He says in a note on 

 XIX. § 115 (vol. III p. 495) that in is generally used with 

 servare in this sense. If thls restoration is correct, the im- 

 plication is that the roots keep better in the earth in which 

 they are grown. On the whole I prefer to follow Detlefsen. 

 To clean the roots might help to keep pure the odor medi- 

 catus. 



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