The Description.

This strange and admirable plant, called Ficus indica, seems to be no other thing than a multiplication of leaves, that is, a tree made of leaves, without body or boughs; for the leaf set in the ground doth in short space take root, and bringeth out of itself other leaves, from which do grow others one after another, till such time as they come to the height of a tree, having also in the mean season boughs as it were coming from those leaves, sometimes more, otherwhiles fewer, as Nature list to bestow, adding leaf unto leaf, whereby it occupieth a great piece of ground: these leaves are long and broad, as thick as a man's thumb, of a deep green colour, set full of long, slender, sharp, and whitish prickles: on the tops of which leaves come forth long flowers not unlike to those of the manured Pomegranate tree, of a yellow colour: after which cometh the fruit like unto the common fig, narrow below, and bigger above, of a green colour, and stuffed full of a red pulp and juice, staining the hands of them that touch it, as do the mulberries, with a bloody or sanguine colour: the top of which figs are environed with certain scaly leaves like a crown, wherein are also contained small grains that are the seeds: the which being sown, do bring forth plants round bodied, like unto the trunk of other trees, with leaves placed thereon like the other; which being set in the ground bring forth trees of leaves, as we have showed.

Upon this plant in some parts of the West Indies grow certain excrescences, which in continuance of time turn into insects; and these outgrowings are that high prized cochineal wherwith they dye colours in grain.

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 whence it hath been brought into Italy, Spain, England, and other countries: in Italy it sometimes beareth fruit, but more often in Spain, and never as yet in England, although I have bestowed great pains and cost in keeping it from the injury of our cold climate.

It groweth also at S. Crux and other places of Barbary, and also in an island of the Mediterranean sea, called Zante, about a day and night's sailing with a mean wind from Patras a port in Morea, where my servant William Marshall (before remembered) did see not only great store of those trees made of leaves, but also divers other round bodied plants of a woody substance: from whence be brought me divers plants thereof in tubs of earth, very fresh and green, which flourished in my garden at the impression hereof.

The Time.

These plants do grow green and fresh both winter and summer, by the relation of my foresaid servant: notwithstanding they must be very carefully kept in these countries from the extremity of winter.

The Names.

This is thought to be the plant called of Pliny, Opuntium; whereof he hath written, lib. 21. cap. 17, in this manner: About Opuns is the herb Opuntia, to man's taste sweet, and it is to be marvelled, that the root should be made of the leaves, and that it should so grow. Opuns is a city near unto Phocis in Greece, as Pausanias, Strabo, and Pliny testify: but it is commonly called in Latin, Ficus indica: of the Indians, Tune, and Tuna, and also Anapallus, as testifieth Bellonius: in English, Indian Fig tree.

There is a certain other described for the Indian Fig tree, by Theophrastus, lib. 4, which Pliny, lib. 12. cap. 5. doth eloquently express almost in the same words, but turned into Latin, whereof we intend to speak in the next chapter.

The Temperature and Virtues.

A. We have no certain instruction from the ancients, of the temperature or faculty of this plant, or of the fruit thereof: neither have we anything whereof to write of our own knowledge, more than that we have heard reported of such as have eaten liberally of the fruit hereof, that it changed their urine to the colour of blood; who at the first sight thereof stood in great doubt of their life, thinking it had been blood, whereas it proved afterwards by experience to be nothing but the tincture or colour the urine had taken from the juice of the fruit, and that without all hurt or grief at all.

B. It is reported of some, that the juice of the fruit is excellent good against ulcers of long continuance.

C. Cochineal is given alone, and mixed with other things, in malign diseases, as pestilent fevers and the like, but with what success I know not.