to hemp, that Europeans generally suppose them to be the produce of the same plant[1]."
Theophrastus[2] (Hist. Pl. viii. 13.) gives the following account of a bulbous plant, called by him [Greek: Bolbos eriophoros], the root of which supplied materials for weaving:—"It grows in bays, and has the wool under the first coats of the bulb so as to be between the inner eatable part and the outer. Socks and other garments are woven from it. Hence this kind is woolly, and not hairy, like that in India."
It is difficult to determine what plant is meant, though the description seems accurate and scientific. Billerbeck absurdly supposes it to be cotton-grass[3]. By former botanists, men of great eminence, it was supposed to be Scilla Hyacinthoides. Sprengel objects, that this species does not grow in Greece[4]. Sir James Smith however (article Scilla in Rees's Cyclop.) represents it as growing in Madeira, Portugal, and the Levant. If this account be true, Theophrastus may have been acquainted with it. In another article, Eriophorus, Sir J. Smith doubts whether either Scilla Hyacinthoides or any other bulb produces wool of such quality and in such quantity as to answer the description of Theophrastus. But, we learn from other well-*
- ↑ Account of the culture and uses of the Son- or Sun-plant of Hindostan by Ironside, in the Phil. Trans., vol. lxiv.: Dr. F. Buchanan's Journey, vol. i. 226, 227, 291.; vol. ii. 227, 235.: Wissett on Hemp, passim.: Roxburgh's Flora Indica, vol. iii. p. 259-263. The genus Lupinus (the Lupin), belonging to the same natural order as Spartium and Crotalaria, might probably afford materials of the same kind. Mr. Strange (Lettera, &c. p. 70.) mentions the filamentous substance of the Lupin as adapted for making paper.
- ↑ "Theophrastus relates, that there is a kind of bulb growing about the banks of rivers, and that between its outer rind and the part of it which is eaten there is a woolly substance, out of which they make certain kinds of socks and cloths. But in the copies which I have found, he neither mentions in what country this is done, nor anything else with greater exactness, except that the bulb is called eriophoros; nor does he make any mention at all of spartum, although he examined the whole subject with great care 390 years before my time, as I have observed in another place (Viz., lib. xv. 1.), from which circumstance it appears, that spartum came into use since that time."
- ↑ Flora Classica, p. 20.
- ↑ German translation of Theophrastus, Notes, vol. ii. p. 283.
