Historia plantarum succulentarum

Of the prickly Indian Fig tree. Chap. 128.

✻ The description.

This strange admirable plant called Ficus indica, seemth to be no other thing then a multiplication of leaves, that is, a tree made of leaves, without body or boughes: for the leafe set in the grounds doth in short space take roote, and bringeth out of it selfe other leaves, from which do grow others one after another, till such time as they come to a height of a tree; having also in the meane season boughes as it were comming from those leaves, sometimes more, otherwhiles fewer as nature list to bestow, adding leafe unto leafe, whereby it occupieth a great peece of ground: these leaves are long, and broad, as thicke as a mans thumbe, of a deepe greene colour, set full of long, slender, sharpe, and whitish prickles: on the tops of which leaves come forthlong flowers, not unlike to those of the matured Pomegranate tree, or rather the Marnell of Peru, of a yellow colour: after which commeth the fruit, like unto the common Fig, narrow below, and bigger above, of a greene colour, stuffed full of a red pulpe and iuice, staining the hands of them that touch it, as do the Mulberies, with a bloudy or sanguine colour: the top of which Figs are inuironed with certaine scaly leaves like a crowne, wherein are also conteined small grains that are the seeds, the which being sowen, do bring foorth plantsm, round bodied, like unto the trunke of other trees, with leaves placed thereon like the otherm which being set in the ground bring foorth trees of leaves, as we have shewed.

✻ The place.

This plant groweth in all the tract of the east and west Indies, and also in the country Norembega, now called Virginia, from whenceit hath beene brought into Italy, Spaine, England, and other countries: in Italy it sometimes beareth fruite, but more often in Spaine, and never as yet in England; although I have bestowed great paines and cost in keeping from the iniure of our cold climate.

It groweth also at Saint Crux and other places of Barbarie, & also in an Illand of the Mediterranean Sea called Zante, about a day & nights failing with a meane winde from Petrasse a port town in Morea, where my servant William Marshall before remembred, did see not onely great store of those trees made of leaves, but also divers other rounde bodied plants, of a woody substance; from whence he brought me divers plants thereof in tubs of earth, very fresh and greene for my garden, where they flourished at the impression heerof.

✻ The time.

These plants do grow greene and fresh both winter and sommer, by the relation of my foresaide servant; notwithstanding they must be very carefully kept in these countries from the extremitie of winter.

✻ The names.

This is thought to be the plant called of Plinie Opuntia, of which he hath written in his 21. booke 17. chapter in this maner; about Opuns is the herbe Opuntia, to mans taste sweete, and it is to be marvelled that the roote should be made of the leafe, and that it should so grow. Opuns is a city neere unto Phocis in Greece, as Pausanias, Strabo, and Plinie testifie: but it is commonly called in Latine Ficus Indica: of the Indians Tune, and Tunas, and also Anapallus. as testifieth Bellonius: in English Indian fig tree.

There is a certaine other described for the Indian Fig tree by Theophrastus, in his fourth booke, which Pliny in his 12. booke 5. chapter, doth eloquently expresse almost in the same words, but turned into Latine, whereof we intend to speake in the next Chapter.

✻ The temperature and vertues.

We have no certaine instruction from the ancients of the temperature or facultie of this plant, or of the fruit thereof: neither have we any thing whereof to write of our owne knowledge, more than that we have heard reported by such as have eaten liberally of the fruite heerof, that it hath changed their urine to the colour of bloud, who at the fight thereof have stoode in great doubt of their life, thinking it had beene bloud, whereas it prooved afterward by experience, to be nothing else but the tincture or colour the urine had taken from the iuice of the fruit, and that without all hurt or griefe at all.