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The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 4 (of 6) cover

The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 4 (of 6)

Chapter 287: CHAP. 30.—THREE VARIETIES OF TREFOIL: THE MYOPHONUM.
By the Elder Pliny
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The text compiles practical and encyclopedic guidance on crop cultivation and plant uses, beginning with cereals and farm management — types of grain, sowing and harvesting schedules, ploughing, seed selection, storage, and maladies — plus weather and stellar prognostics for agricultural timing. It proceeds to flax and garden plants, detailing varieties, planting and processing methods, garden layout, and pest and disease remedies. The final section assembles medicinal preparations and numerous remedies derived from vegetables and herbs, listing applications and recipes for treating ailments using garden-grown plants.

CHAP. 30.—THREE VARIETIES OF TREFOIL: THE MYOPHONUM.

The leaves of trefoil also are employed for making chaplets. There are three varieties: the first being called by the Greeks sometimes “minyanthes,”2036 and sometimes “asphaltion;” the leaves of it, which the garland-makers employ, are larger than those of the other kinds. The second variety, known as the “oxytriphyllon,”2037 has a pointed leaf; and the third has the smallest leaf of them all. Among these plants there are some which have a tough, sinewy stem, such as marathron,2038 for instance, hippomarathron,2039 and the myophonum.2040 The umbels, too, of fennel-giant and the purple flowers2041 of the ivy are employed for this purpose; as also another kind of ivy very similar to the wild rose,2042 the colour only of which is attractive, the flower being quite inodorous. There are also two2043 varieties used of the cneorum, the black and the white, this last being odoriferous: they are both of them provided with branches, and they blossom after the autumnal equinox.2044

(10.) There are the same number of varieties, also, of origanum employed in making chaplets, one of which is destitute of seed, the other, which is also odoriferous, being known as the Cretan2045 origanum.