CHAP. 50.—LOVAGE.

Lovage[1] grows wild in the mountains of Liguria, its native country, but at the present day it is grown everywhere. The cultivated kind is the sweetest of the two, but is far from powerful; by some persons it is known as "panax." Crateuas, a Greek writer, gives this name, however, to the plant known to us as "cunila bubula;"[2] and others, again, call the conyza[3] or cunilago, cunila, while they call cunila,[4] properly so called, by the name of "thymbra." With us cunila has another appellation, being generally known as "satureia," and reckoned among the seasoning plants. It is usually sown in the month of February, and for utility rivals wild marjoram. These two plants are never used together, their properties being so extremely similar; but it is only the wild marjoram of Egypt that is considered superior to cunila.

1. The Ligusticum levisticum of Linnæus.

2. "Ox cunila." One of the Labiatæ, probably; but whether one of the Satureia or of the Thymbra is not known. See B. xx. cc. 60, 61.

3. See B. xxi. c. 32.

4. Scribonius Largus gives this name to savory, the Satureia hortensis of Linnæus. The whole of this passage is very confused, and its mean- ing is by no means clear.