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

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

Chapter 310: CHAP. 53.—FOUR VARIETIES OF THE CNECOS.
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. 53.—FOUR VARIETIES OF THE CNECOS.

The Egyptians have many other plants also, of little note; but they speak in the highest terms of the cnecos;2177 a plant unknown to Italy, and which the Egyptians hold in esteem, not as an article of food, but for the oil it produces, and which is extracted from the seed. The principal varieties are the wild and the cultivated kinds; of the wild variety, again, there are two sorts, one of which is less prickly2178 than the other, but with a similar stem, only more upright: hence it is that in former times females used it for distaffs, from which circumstance it has received the name of “atractylis”2179 from some; the seed of it is white, large, and bitter. The other variety2180 is more prickly, and has a more sinewy stem, which may be said almost to creep upon the ground; the seed is small. The cnecos belongs to the thorny plants: indeed, it will be as well to make some classification of them.