28 
PLINt's IfATTJRAL HTSTORT. [Book XXIV. 
ment, it cures chaps of the rectum ; and employed with salt, 
nitre, and wax, it is good for sprains. The seed and leaves 
are used as ingredients also in emollient plasters for diseases 
of the sinews, and for gout ; and a decoction of the seed in oil is 
employed as a fomentation for the head in cases of phrenitis 
and lethargy. Persons'''^ who carry a sprig of this plant in the 
hand, or stuck in the girdle, will he proof, it is said, against 
chafing hetween the thighs. 
CHAP* 39. THE ERICA ; ONE KEMEDY. 
The Greeks give the name of " erice,""^^ to a shrub that is but 
little different from the myrice."^^ It has the colour, and very 
nearly the leaf, of rosemary. It neutralizes"^^ the venom of 
serpents, it is said. 
CHAP. 40. — THE broom; five remedies. 
The broom is used for making withes the flowers of it 
are greatly sought by bees. I have my doubts whether this 
is not the same plant that the Greek writers have called 
'^sparton,'' and of which, in those parts of the world, as I have 
already'^ stated, they are in the habit of making fishing-nets. 
I doubt also whether Homer"^^ has alluded to this plant, when 
he speaks of the seams of the ships, — **the sparta" coming 
asunder ; for it is certain that in those times the spartum"^^ of 
Spain or Africa was not as yet in use, and that vessels made 
of materials sown together, were united by the agency, not of 
spartum, but of flax. 
Travelling on horseback, probably. A similar superstition is mentioned 
as to the poplar, in c. 32 of this Book. 
Probably the Erica arborea of Linnaeus ; see B. xiii. c. 35. It has 
not, however, a leaf similar to that of rosemary, with the sole exception, 
Fee says, of the Erica cinerea of Linnaeus. 
72 See B. xiii. c. 37. '^'^ It has no such effect, in reality. 
■5^* See B. xvi, c. 69. The kind here alluded to is the Spanish broom, 
Fee thinks. '^^ In B. xix. c. 2. Vol. lY. p. 135. 
'6 Iliad, B. ii. 1, 135. See B. xix. c. 6, where Pliny states it as his 
opinion that in this passage Homer is speaking of flax, 
" See B. xix. c. 7. Fee thinks that the plant under consideration in 
this Chapter is the Spanish broom, Genista juncea of Lamarck, the Spar- 
tium junceum of Linnaeus, a different plant from the Spartum of B. xix. 
c. 7, the Stipa tenacissima of Linnaeus. He is of opinion also, that Homer 
in the passage referred to alludes, not to flaix, but to the Genista juncea. See 
this question further discussed, in the additional Note at the end of B. xxvii. 
