[598] Lud. Nonnii Diæteticon. Antv. 1646, 4to, p. 56. [599] It was said, that if the corners of the seeds were bruised, no prickles would be produced. See Geopon. lib. xii. cap. 39. [It is a well-known physiological fact in botany, that many plants which are naturally spinous, when cultivated in gardens or rich soil, become unarmed. The production of spines seems to arise from an imperfect development of the growing point of a plant; when this development is increased by the greater supply of nutriment, the spines disappear, their places being supplied by a branch having leaves. We have instances of this in the apple, pear, &c., which are naturally spinous.] [600] Geopon. _l. c._ Columella, xi. cap. 3. [601] Geopon. 925, where repeated watering is directed; it is said you will then have tenderer fruit, and in more abundance. [602] Virgil. Geor. i. 150. Plin. xviii. cap. 17. [603] Palladius, iv. 9, p. 934, and lib. xi. Octob. p. 987. In the first-mentioned place he gives the same direction for preventing prickles, as that quoted respecting the _cinara_. [604] Pliny, lib. xx. says, “The wind easily carries away the withered flowers on account of their woolly nature.” [605] Κύναρος ἄκανθα πάντα πληθύει γύην.--Sophocles, in Phœnice. ... Segnisque horreret in arvis Carduus...--Virgil. Georg. i. 50. [606] Athen. Deipnos. at the end of the second book, p. 70. Salmasius, in his Remarks on Solinus, p. 159, is of opinion that Athenæus wrote κάρδον, not κάρδυον; and the Latins not _carduus_, but _cardus_. [607] Lib. iii. cap. 19. [608] Lib. xix. cap. 8. [609] _Arctium Lappa_, an indigenous weed, difficult to be rooted out. Elsholz, in his Gartenbau, speaking of the Spanish cardoons, says, “The strong stem of the large burr, _Arctium Lappa_, may be dressed in the same manner, and is not much different in taste.” See also Thomas Moufet’s Health’s Improvement. Lond. 1746, 8vo, p. 217. [610] Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 16. [611] Theophrastus: “Conceptus non spinosus, sed oblongus.” But Dioscorides says, “Capitulum spinosum.” This contradiction, and other small variations, have induced some to consider the _scolymus_ of Theophrastus and that of Dioscorides as two different plants. [612] Dioscor. iii. 16. [613] Dioscor. lib. iii. cap. 10, where he says of a plant that its leaves were like those of the _Scolymus_, and its stem like that of the _Cinara_. [614] Rariorum Plantarum Historiæ, lib. iv. p. 153.