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.