CHAP. 18.—THE RADICULA.
The plant known to us by the name of "radicula,"[1] is the
second of these productions. It furnishes a juice that is extensively employed in washing wool, and it is quite wonderful
how greatly it contributes to the whiteness and softness of
wool. It may be produced anywhere by cultivation, but that
which grows spontaneously in Asia, and Syria,[2] upon rugged,
rocky sites, is more highly esteemed. That, however, which
is found beyond the Euphrates has the highest repute of all.
The stalk of it is ferulaceous[3] and thin, and is sought by the
inhabitants of those countries as an article of food. It is employed also for making unguents, being boiled up with the
other ingredients, whatever they may happen to be. In leaf
it strongly resembles the olive. The Greeks have given it the
name of "struthion." It blossoms in summer, and is agreeable to the sight, but entirely destitute of smell. It is somewhat
thorny, and has a stalk covered with down. It has an extremely diminutive seed, and a large root, which is cut up and
employed for the purposes already mentioned.
1. Or "little root;" though, in reality, as Pliny says, it had a large
root. Some writers have supposed, that by this name is meant the
Reseda luteola of Linnæus, the "dyer's weed" of the moderns; but neither
Pliny nor any of the Greek writers mention the Radicula as being used
for dyeing. Some, again, identify it with the Gypsophila struthium of
Linnæus, without sufficient warranty, however, as Fée thinks.
2. The Gypsophila struthium grows in Spain, and possibly, Fée says,
in other countries. Linnæus has "pretended," he says, that the Spaniards
still employ the root and stalk of the Gypsophila for the same purposes as
the ancients did the same parts of the Radicula. He himself, however,
though long resident in Spain, had never observed such to be the fact.
3. This description, Fée says, does not correspond with that of the Gypsophila struthium, the stalk of which does not at all resemble that of the
ferulaceous plants, and the leaf is quite different in appearance from that
of the olive.