CHAP. 37.—THE TRAGOS OR SCORPIO; THE MYRICA OR BRYA; THE
OSTRYS.
Asia, too, produces the tragos[1] or scorpio, a thorny shrub,
destitute of leaves, with red clusters upon it that are employed
in medicine. Italy produces the myrica, which some persons
call the "tamarix;"[2] and Achaia, the wild brya,[3] remarkable
for the circumstance that it is only the cultivated kind that
bears a fruit, not unlike the gall-nut. In Syria and Egypt
this plant is very abundant. It is to the trees of this last
country that we give the name of "unhappy;"[4] but yet those
of Greece are more unhappy still, for that country produces the
tree known as "ostrya," or, as it is sometimes called, "ostrya,"[5]
a solitary tree that grows about rocks washed by the water,
and very similar in the bark and branches to the ash. It re-
sembles the pear-tree in its leaves, which, however, are a little
longer and thicker, with wrinkled indentations running down
the whole length of the leaf. The seed of this tree resembles
barley in form and colour. The wood is hard and solid; it is
said, that if it is introduced into a house, it is productive of
painful deliveries and of shocking deaths.
1. See B. xxvii. c. 116. Sprengel identifies it with the Salsola tragus
of Linnæus.
2. Probably the Tamarix Gallica of Linnæus. Fée says, in relation to
the myrica, that it would seem that the ancients united in one collective
name, several plants which resembled each other, not in their botanical
characteristics, but in outward appearance. To this, he says, is owing
the fact that Dioscorides calls the myrica a tree, Favorinus a herb;
Dioscorides says that it is fruitful, Nicander and Pliny call it barren;
Virgil calls it small, and Theophrastus says that it is large.
3. Fee thinks that it is the Tamarix orientalis of Delille.
4. "Infelix," meaning "sterile." He seems to say this more particularly
in reference to the brya, which Egypt produces. As to this use of the word
"infelix," see B. xvi. c. 46.
5. Sprengel and Fée identify this with the Ostrya vulgaris of Willdenow,
the Carpinus ostrya of Linnæus.