Chap. 44.] 
THE GFCUBALUS. 
241 
CHAP. 43. — THE CHEYSOLACHANUM ; TWO YAlilETIES OF IT : 
THKEE EEMEDIES. COAGULUM TEKK^ : TWO EEMEDIES. 
The chrysolachanum^*^ grows in pine plantations, and is 
similar to the lettuce in appearance. It heals wounds of the 
sinews, if applied without delay. There is another kind^^ of 
chrysolachanum mentioned, with a golden flower, and a leaf 
like that of the cabbage : it is boiled and eaten as a laxative 
vegetable. This plant, worn as an amulet by a patient suffer- 
ing from jaundice, provided it be always kept in sight, is a cure 
for that disease, it is said. I am not certain whether this is 
all that might be said about the chrysolachanum, but, at 
all events, it is all that I have found respecting it ; for it is 
a very general fault on the part of our more recent herbalists, 
to confine their account of plants to the mere name, with a 
very meagre description of the peculiar features of the plant, 
— ^just as though, forsooth, they were universally known. Thus, 
they tell us, for instance, that a plant known as coagulum^^ 
terrae," acts astringently upon the bowels, and that it dispels 
strangury, taken in water or in wine. 
CHAP. 44. THE CdCUBALTJS, STREMUS, OE STEYCHKOif : SIX 
EEMEDIES. 
The leaves of the cucubalus,*^ they tell us, bruised with 
vinegar, are curative of the stings of serpents and of scorpions. 
Some persons call this plant by the name of strumus,"^^ 
while others give it the Greek name of strychnon its ber- 
ries are black. The juice of these berries, administered in 
doses of one cyathus, in two cyathi of honied wine, is curative 
of lumbago ; an infusion of them with rose oil is used for head- 
ache, and they are employed as an application for scrofulous 
sores. 
2^ " Golden vegetable.'' Supposed to be identical with tlie Atriplex of 
B. XX. c. 38, our Orage. 
Cultivated orage, probably. 
"Earth rennet." This plant has not been identified. Lobelius has 
made a guess at the Serapias abortiva of Linnaeus, the Helleborine. It is 
pretty clear that it was unknown to Phny himself. 
The same, probably, as the Trychnon of B. xxi. cc. 52, 105, Solanum 
nigrum or Black nightshade. In the former editions the reading is "cuculus." 
42 The "strumous" or "scrofula" plant. 
. VOL. V. li 
