I36 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
parvus hiatu exitus '). Expose this to the wind (' nothi vis '), then 
make an incision with your knife and a great quantity of juice will 
come out with the seed." When the " calyps penetrat " the " vis- 
cera (hujus) pomi " 
elicit humoris largos cum semine rivos 
multiplices. Turn deinde cavum per plurima tergus 
frusta manu spargens hortorum laetus opimas 
delicias conviva capit, candorque saporque 
oblectant fauces ; nec duros ilia molares 
esca stupere facit, facili sed mansa voratu 
vi naturali frigus per viscera nutrit." 
By which I understand that after the juice has been extracted the 
rind must be torn into small pieces and will be delicious, for the 
whiteness and the flavour please the palate and you do not bite on 
anything hard to hurt your teeth (or set them on edge ? — " stupere "), 
but it is easy to masticate and swallow (" facili mansa voratu ") and it 
cools you pleasantly inside. Yes, there is the cheerful old monk working 
his little melon as our boys sometimes work an orange before sucking 
and scattering the peel on the pavement. One feels for his poor old 
teeth and their trials with monastic fare, and one imagines the smile 
that tells of the pleasant coolness as the meal goes down. 
But Walafred is not a mere utilitarian : he also notes the habit of 
growth of each nursling, and has an eye for its beauty too, e.g. the blue- 
green foliage of the rue, how it throws up its umbels and lets the air 
and sun get to the lowest stems ; the suggestive fact that sage 
" tolerat civile malum " (whatever that may mean) and will die unless 
you strip off the flowers ; the downy growth of allheal, its spiky 
racemes and hairlike foliage ; the sweet smell and bitter taste of 
horehound, while fennel is fairly sweet both to taste and smell ; the 
different kinds of mint, one being " praepingue," large-leaved and tall 
as elder, with different scent and bitter taste ; while catmint is like a 
nettle in appearance but gives an extremely pleasant scent ; notes 
which seem to indicate not the mere versifier of a manual but an 
intelligent man, observing for himself what comes within his range. 
Most of all is this shown by the genuine delight in his more important 
plants. For the three on which he chiefly dwells are his collection of 
Cucurbitaceae, his bulbs, and his roses. (1) The ' altipetax cucurbita ' 
forms a thick shade with shield-like leaves, and throws out tendrils 
like vines on elms (or the red-berried wild vine, briony, or smilax ?) 
to grapple its supports, and clinging as with claws to the alders climbs 
aloft. " There is a tendril for each node and a double thread to each 
tendril, so it has two hands for climbing, and as our spinsters transfer 
their soft work-stuff to their spindles^and from wide skeins wind 
the whole ball of thread, so do these thongs wrap round the stages 
of their supports." * Then there is the beautiful roundness of the 
* " Ut nentes in fusum . . . pensa puellae 
mollia trajiciunt spirisque ingentibus omnem 
filorum seriem pulchros metantur in orbes, 
sic vaga tortilibus stringunt ammenta catenis 
scalarum teretes involvuntque illico virgas." 
