PAPYRUS. 
53 
“ The construction of the stalk of the papyrus 
seems to reproach Aristotle with want of observa- 
tion. He says that no plant has either triangular 
or quadrangular stalks. Here we see an instance 
of the contrary in the papyrus, whose stalk is cer- 
tainly and universally triangular; and we learn from 
Dioscorides, that many more have quadrangular 
stalks, or stems of four angles. 
u It has but one root, which is large and strong, 
Pliny says, as thick as a man’s arm *. So it was pro- 
bably when the plant was fifteen feet high, but it 
is now diminished in proportion, the whole length 
of the stalk, comprehending the head, being a little 
above ten ; but the root is still hard and solid near 
the heart, and works with the turning loom tolerably 
well, as it did formerly when they made cups of it. 
In the middle of this long root arises the stalk at 
right angles, so when inverted it has the figure of 
a T, and on each side of the larger root there are 
smaller elastic ones, which are of a direction per- 
pendicular to it, and which, like the strings of a 
tent, steady it, and fix it to the earth at the bottom. 
About two feet, or little more, of the lower part of 
the stalk is clothed with long, hollow, sword-shaped 
leaves, which cover each other like scales, and for- 
tify the foot of the plant. They are of a dusky 
brown or yellow colour. I suppose the stalk was 
cut off below about where these leaves end. 
“ The head is not upright, but is inclined, as 
from its size it always must be in hot countries, in 
* Lib. xiii. cap. 11. 
