116 
PLINY S KATUBAL HISTOET. [Book XXV 
is sufficient to burn the mouth. The persons who gather it 
are in the habit of enclosing it in a stem of fennel- giant or in a 
reed, which they close at the ends that the virtues of it may 
not escape. Some persons say, that both plants grow indis- 
criminately in numerous localities, the inferior sort being the 
produce of rich soils, and the genuine dittany being found 
nowhere but in rugged, uncultivated spots. 
There is, again, a third^* plant called dictamnum,'^ which, 
however, has neither the appearance nor the properties of the 
other plant so called ; the leaves of it are like those of sisym- 
brium,^^ but the branches are larger. 
There has long been this impression with reference to Crete, 
that whatever plant grows there is infinitely superior in its 
properties to a similar plant the produce of any other country ; 
the second rank being given to the produce of Mount Parnassus. 
In addition to this, it is generally asserted that simples of ex- 
cellent quality are found upon Mount Pelion in Thessaly, 
Mount Teleuthrius in Euboea, and throughout the whole of 
Arcadia and Laconia, Indeed, the Arcadians, they say, are 
in the habit of using, not the simples themselves, but milk, 
in the spring season more particularly ; a period at which the 
field plants are swollen with juice, and the milk is medicated 
by their agency. It is cows' milk in especial that they use 
for this purpose, those animals being in the habit of feeding 
upon nearly every kind of plant. The potent properties of 
plants are manifested by their action upon four-footed animals 
in two very remarkable instances : in the vicinity of Abdera 
and the tract known as the Boundary of Diomedes, the horses, 
after pasturing, become inflamed with frantic fury ; the same 
is the case, too, with the male asses, in the neighbourhood of 
Potnise. 
CHAP. 54. THE ARTSTOLOCHIA, CLEMATITIS, CRETICA, PLISTOLO- 
CHIA, LOCHIA POLTRRHIZOS, OE APPLE OP THE EAETH : TWENT5'- 
TWO EEMEDIES. 
In the number of the most celebrated plants is the aristo- 
^* Fee is inclined, with Sprengel, to identify it with the Origanum 
Creticum of Linnaeus. Other commentators have suggested the Origanum 
Tournefortii, the Thymus mastichina of Linnseus, and the Marrubium 
acetabulosum of Linnaeus. 
1^ See B. XX. c. 91. "Limes Diomedis." 
