BOOK XXVI. Liii. 85-Lv. 87 



which is black, is in a pod, and it ripens at the same 

 time as barley. This seed is of a bracing " quaHty, 

 checks diarrhoea and promotes urine ; it is taken 

 with wine for bladder troubles. 



LIV. There is another hypei-icon, called by some 

 caro, having a leaf Hke that of the tamarisk — it grows 

 underneath it — but more fleshy and less red.'' It is 

 scented, more than a span high, with a sweet and 

 rather pungent "^ taste. The seed is of a heating 

 nature and therefore causes inflammation, but it is 

 not injurious to the stomach ; it is particularly good 

 for strangury, if the bladder is not ulcerated. Taken 

 in wine it is also good for pleurisy, LV. as moi-eover 

 is calHthrix for the bladder if beaten up with cummin 

 and achiiinistered in white wine. Vervain too if 

 boiled down with the leaves to one third, or its root 

 in warm honey wine, expels stone from the bladder, 

 as does also perpressa, which grows near Arretium 

 and in Illyricum ; it is taken in drink, boiled down 

 in water from three heminae to one. Trefoil, taken 

 in wine, and chrysanthemum, have the same eifect. 

 Stone is expelled also by anthemis, which has five 

 small leaves growing from the root, two long stems 



no variant, and it is hard to see why a scribe should alter an 

 easy reading, whether minoribus or minutis, to minus. It is 

 to be noted that Pliny has pingnioribus . . . et minus rubenti- 

 bus, but Dioscorides fiLKporepov Be Kal XnrapwTepov Kal epvOpov. 

 If the Greek before Pliny (or his reader) had the adjectives in 

 Pliny's order, without connecting particles (XmapJjTepov, 

 pLiKpoTepov, epvdpov), it is just possible that they were taken 

 to mean '" more fleshy and a little less red." ISo, after long 

 hesitation, I have kept the MSS. reading. Note that Pliny 

 read juupiK-Tj? for epeiK7]s. 



' Acutus when used of sapores seems to mean merely 

 " sharp " ; acer, on the contrary, means not only pungent, 

 but salty and with a vinegary fiavour. 



329 



