Proceeding now into the orchard we find, that, instead of walls, it was, sometimes at least, if it touched on the confines of another man’s grounds, surrounded by hedges[1326] of black and white thorn, brambles, and barberry bushes, as at present[1327] by impenetrable fences of the Indian cactus.[1328] On the banks of these hedges, both inside and out, were found, peculiar tribes of plants and wild flowers, in some places enamelling the smooth close turf, elsewhere flourishing thickly in dank masses of verdure, or climbing upwards and interlacing themselves with the lofty and projecting thorns, such as the enchanter’s nightshade, the euphorbia, the iris tuberosa, the red-flowered valerian, the ground-ivy,[1329] the physalis somnifera, with its coral red seeds in their inflated calyces,[1330] the globularia, the creeping heliotrope, the penny-cress,[1331] the bright yellow scorpion-flower, and the broad-leaved cyclamen or our Lady’s-seal, with pink flower, light green leaf, veined with white and yellow beneath. The ancient Parthians surrounded their gardens with hedges of a fragrant, creeping shrub denominated philadelphos or love-brother,[1332] whose long suckers they interwove into a kind of network forming a sufficient protection against man and beast. In mountainous districts, where rain-floods were to be guarded against, the enclosures frequently consisted of walls of loose stones,[1333] as is still the case in Savoy on the edge of mountain torrents. ----- Footnote 1326: Geop. v. 44. Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 24. p. 112. Footnote 1327: Walp. Mem. i. 60. Footnote 1328: The cactus, as most travellers will have remarked, flourishes luxuriantly in Sicily even among the beds of lava where little else will grow; it appears, however, to delight in a volcanic soil. Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies, “i. 209. In the Æolian Islands it thrives so well that it usually grows to the height of ten, twelve, and sometimes fifteen feet, with a stem a foot or more in diameter. The fruits, which are nearly as large as turkeys’ eggs, are sweet and extremely agreeable to the palate. It is well-known that the fruits grow at the edges of the leaves, the number on each leaf is not constant, but they are frequently numerous, as I have counted two and twenty on a single leaf.” iv. 97. Footnote 1329: Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 29. tab. 157. tab. 185. Footnote 1330: Sibth. in Walp. Trav. p. 73, seq. On the seasons of these wild flowers see Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 9. 2. Footnote 1331: Dioscor. ii. 186. Footnote 1332: Athen. xv. 29. Footnote 1333: Demosth. in Callicl. § 1. 3, seq. -----