CHAP. 10.—THE BULB ERIOPHORUS.
Theophrastus[1] informs us, that there is a kind of bulb, which
grows on the banks of rivers, and which encloses between the
outer coat and the portion that is eaten a sort of woolly substance, of which felt socks, and other articles of dress, are made;
but, in the copies, those at least which have fallen in my way,
there is no mention made of the country in which it grows, or
of any details in connection with it, beyond the fact that
the name given to it is "eriophoron."[2] As to spartum,
he makes no[3] mention of it whatever, although he has given
the history, with the greatest exactness, of all the known
plants, three hundred and ninety years before our time—a fact
to which I have already[4] alluded on other occasions: from
this it would appear that spartum has come into use since his
day.
1. Hist. Plant. B. vii. c. 13. Athenæus B. ii., mentions it also.
2. Fée is at a loss to identify this plant, but considers it quite clear
that it is not the same with the Eriophorum augustifolium of Linnæus, a
cyperaceous plant, of which the characteristics are totally different. Dodonæus, however, was inclined to consider them identical.
3. On the contrary, Theophrastus does mention it, in the Hist. Plant.
B. i. c. 8, and speaks of it as having a bark composed of several tunics or
membranes.
4. In B. xiii. c. 13, and B. xv. c. l.