The above is all that the ancients have told us respecting this plant. The information is indeed very scanty, and at the same time it is not altogether certain; but even if it were, it would be sufficient only to confute some conjectures, but not to establish the systematic name of the plant. I call the properties of it described to us uncertain: first, because I do not know whether Pliny did not mean to distinguish the wild plant from that which was cultivated, and many have understood as alluding to the former that which I have applied to both: secondly, because the words of Theophrastus, being in one passage evidently corrupted, will admit of various constructions; and because in another, on account of some exceptions, of which he speaks, they appear at least to me unintelligible: thirdly, because Pliny, who gives us the best account of it, is the only author who calls the _struthium_ or soap-plant _radicula_, a name by which is rather to be understood a dye-plant of the same kind as madder. We have reason therefore to suspect that he has confounded the properties of the two plants, especially as the fourth property was ascribed by others to a _Rubia_, _Asperula_, or _Galium_, which was cultivated in Syria, and named often _radicula Syriaca_. On the other hand, this diminutive is very ill-suited to a root which Pliny himself calls large. The words of that author, “tingenti, quicquid sit cum quo decoquatur,” have been by some explained as if he meant that the _struthium_ was a dye-plant, though as a soapy plant it must have been destitute of colour; and they have hence deduced a proof that Pliny confounded the _struthium_ with the _radicula_ used in dyeing. On the other hand, Hardouin reads _unguentis_ instead of _tingenti_. He assures us that he found the former in manuscripts, and is of opinion that the sap of the _struthium_ was used also for ointments. In my opinion, however, _tingenti_ must be retained; and the meaning is that when cloth was to be dyed it was necessary to prepare it for that purpose by soaking it and washing it with the sap of this plant. This he expressly tells us himself; “tingentibus et radicula lanas præparat.” It is probable that the ancient dyers mixed their dye-liquors with the juice of the _struthium_, for the same purpose as bran and the seeds of fenugreek are added to dye-liquors at present; that is, to render them thicker and more slimy, in order that the colouring particles may be longer and more equally suspended in or diffused through them[254]. The words _quidquid sit cum quo decoquatur_ will now become intelligible. Whatever may be employed for dyeing, says the author, the addition of the juice of the _struthium_ is serviceable.