Chap. 15.] 
CARTOPHYLLOIT. 
113 
by hunger only for tlie satisfying of a greedy appetite ? Eoth 
pepper and ginger grow wild in their respective countries, and 
yet here we buy them by weight — just as if they were so 
much gold or silver. Italy/^ too, now possesses a species of 
pepper- tree, somewhat larger than the myrtle, and not very 
unlike it. The bitterness of the grains is similar to that which 
we may reasonably suppose to exist in the Indian pepper 
when newly gathered ; but it is wanting in that mature fla- 
vour which the Indian grain acquires by exposure in the sun, 
and, consequently, bears no resemblance to it, either in colour 
or the wrinkled appearance of the seeds. Pepper is adulterated 
with juniper berries, which have the property, to a marvellous 
degree, of assuming the pungency of pepper. In reference to 
its weight, there are also several methods of adulterating it. 
CHAP. 15. CAEYOPHYLLOTT, LYCIOIT, AND THE CHIRONIAN 
PYXACANTHUS. 
There is, also, in India another grain which bears a consi- 
derable resemblance to pepper, but is longer and more brittle ; 
it is known by the name of caryophyllon.^'^ It is said that 
this grain is produced in a sacred grove in India ; with us it 
is imported for its aromatic perfume. The same country pro- 
duces, also, a thorny shrub, with grains which bear a resem- 
blance to pepper, and are of a remarkably bitter taste. The 
leaves of this shrub are small, like those of the Cyprus ; the 
branches are three cubits in length, the bark pallid, and the 
roots wide-spreading and woody, and of a- colour resembling 
that of boxwood. Ey boiling this root with the seed in a 
copper vessel, the medicament is prepared which is known by 
the name of lycion.^^ This thorny shrub grows, also, on 
It is very doubtful what tree is here alluded to by Pliny, though cer- 
tain that it is not one of the pepper-trees. Sprengel takes it to be the 
Daphne Thymelffia. 
^2 It has been suggested that under this name the clove is meant, though. 
Fee and Desfontaines express a contrary opinion. Sprengel thinks that it 
is the Vitex trifolia of Linnaeus, a,nd Bauhin suggests the cubeb, the Piper 
cubeba of Linnseus. Fee thinks it may have possibly been the Myrtus 
caryophyllata of Ceylon, the fruit of which corresponds to the description 
here given by Pliny. 
See c. 52 of the present Book. 
^ 54^ Qj. a Lycium." It is impossible to say with exactness what the medical 
liquid called " Lycion " was. Catechu, an extract from the tan of the 
acacia, has been suggested j though the fruit of that tree does not answer 
the present description. 
VOL. III. I 
