Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/248

 informed botanists, that various bulbs have under the outer-*most coats a copious tissue of tough fibres, fully sufficient to be employed in weaving. This is particularly the case with the genera Amaryllis, Crinum, and Pancratium, as well as Scilla. The fibrous coats serve as a protection to the interior and more vital parts of the bulb.

Hoffmansegg and Link, who travelled in Portugal, in the description of Scilla Hyacinthoides, say, "Bulbus tomento viscoso tectus ."

Sonnini says of the Scilla Maritima, "The Greeks of the Archipelago call it Kourvara-skilla, kourvara signifying properly a 'tuft of thread' (peloton de fil )." Does this refer to the fibres mentioned by Theophrastus? The size of this bulb, which is the common squill, used in pharmacy, seems to favor this supposition. It is often as large as a man's head. Hoffmansegg and Link say it grows abundantly on barren hills in Spain and Portugal; but add, "The name maritima is not quite proper: for the plant is seldom met with near the sea-shore, and sometimes very remote from it." On the other hand, it must have been so called, because it was reported by others to grow on the sea-shore; and Sir James Smith (in Rees's Cyclopedia) expressly states, that it grows on "sandy shores." Redouté says the same.

From the account of Pancratium by Sir James Edward Smith (in Rees's Cyclop.), we learn that two species grow in Greece, viz. P. Maritimum and Illyricum.

The remarks now offered appear to prove, that there certainly may have been a bulb, such as Theophrastus describes, though we have not sufficient information to decide its genus and species. It may have been the Scilla Maritima.

It is to be observed, that he refers also to an Indian bulb, having similar properties. Perhaps he alluded to some plant of