Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/247

 to hemp, that Europeans generally suppose them to be the produce of the same plant ."

Theophrastus (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. By former botanists, men of great eminence, it was supposed to be Scilla Hyacinthoides. Sprengel objects, that this species does not grow in Greece. Sir James Smith however (article 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-*