The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 · the Elder Pliny
[2293] A.U.C. 367.
It is evidently this juxtaposition that has prompted Pliny to mention the vaccinium in the succeeding passage. In B. xii. c. 51, and B. xxiv. c. 45, Pliny seems inclined to confound this shrub with the Cyprus, the Lawsonia inermis of Linnæus, the Henna of the east, a totally different plant. [2418] Wooden tallies used by public officers in keeping their accounts. They were employed till the middle ages. [2419] The Primus mahaleb, Desfontaines says; but Fée identifies it with the black heath-berry, or whortle-berry, still called “vaciet” in France. It does not, however, grow, as Pliny says, in watery places, but in woods and on shrubby hills. [2420] See B. xxi. c. 97. [2421] These observations, Fée says, are borrowed from Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. iii. c. 4, and are founded on truth. [2422] “Silvestres,” and “urbaniores.” [2423] Urbanæ. [2424] The Nerion oleander of Linnæus; the laurel-rose, or rose of St. Anthony of the French; it has some distant resemblance to the olive-tree, but its leaf is that of the laurel, and its flower very similar to that of the rose. [2425] See B. xxiv. c. 61. [2426] “Nerion” is the Greek name. [2427] It has certain dangerous properties, which cause the herbivorous animals to avoid touching it. It acts strongly on the muscular system, and, as Fée remarks, used as an antidote to the stings of serpents, it is not improbable that its effect would be the worst of the two.
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