406 
Pliny's natural histoet. 
[Book XVI. 
cliomenus lias a passage in it open from one end to the other, 
and is known as the anleticon this last is best for making 
pipesj^^ the former^^ for the syrinx. There is another reed, 
the wood of which is thicker, and the passage very con- 
tracted, being entirely filled with a spongy kind of pith. One 
kind, again, is shorter, and another longer, the one thinner, 
the other more thick. That known as the donax, throws out 
the most shoots, and grows only in watery localities ; in- 
deed, this is a point which constitutes a very considerable 
difference, those reeds being greatly preferred which grow 
in a dry soil. The archer's reed forms a peculiar species, as 
we have already stated but that of Crete has the longest 
intervals between the joints, and when subjected to heat is 
capable of being rendered perfectly pliable^* at pleasure. The 
leaves, too, constitute different varieties, not only by their 
number, but their colour also. The reed of Laconia is spot- 
ted, and throws out a greater number of shoots at the lower 
extremities; being very similar in nature, it is thought, to 
the reeds that we find growing about stagnant waters, and 
unlike those of the rivers, in being covered with leaves of 
considerable length; which, climbing upwards, embrace the 
stem to a considerable distance above the joints. There is 
also an obliquely- spreading reed, which does not shoot up- 
wards to any height, but spreads out like a shrub, keeping 
close to the earth ; this reed is much sought by animals when 
young, and is known by some persons as the elegia.^^ There 
is in Italy, too, a substance found in the marsh-reeds, called 
by the name of adarca it is only to be found issuing from the 
cuter skin, below the flossy head of the plant, and is particularly 
29 Or the pipe-reed. 
30 The tibia, or pipe, was played lengthwise, like the flageolet or 
clarionet. 
A variety of the Arundo donax. The Orchomenian reed is of the 
same class. The fistula was played sideways ; and seems to have been a 
name given both to the Syrinx or the Pandsean pipes, and the flute, 
properly so called. 
2^ In the last Chapter. The Arundo donax, probably, so far as Euro- 
pean warfare was concerned. 
33 A variety of the Arundo donax of Linnoous. 
3^ This is not the fact. 35 The Arundo versicolor of Miller. 
3^ Constantinus and Schneider, upon Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. iv. 
c, 11, suspect the correctness of this word. 
3^ See B. XX. c. 88, and B, xxxii. c. 52, 
