Theophrastus871 informs us, that there is a kind of bulb, which grows on the banks of rivers, and which encloses between the outer coat and the portion that is eaten a sort of woolly substance, of which felt socks, and other articles of dress, are made; but, in the copies, those at least which have fallen in my way, there is no mention made of the country in which it grows, or of any details in connection with it, beyond the fact that the name given to it is “eriophoron.”872 As to spartum, he makes no873 mention of it whatever, although he has given the history, with the greatest exactness, of all the known plants, three hundred and ninety years before our time—a fact to which I have already874 alluded on other occasions: from this it would appear that spartum has come into use since his day.