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¶ The Description.
IN the Chapter of Zedoarie (which I made the 28. of the first booke) I might fitly haue giuen you this historie of 〈◊〉〈◊〉, which is thought to be that described by Auicen, lib. 2. c. 734. and a kinde of Zedoarie: Garcias saith, Gedwar is at a high rate, and not easily to be found, vnlesse with the In∣dian Mountibanks and juglers, which they call Iogues, which goe vp and downe the countrey like Rogues, and of these the Kings and Noblemen buy 〈◊〉〈◊〉: it is good for many things, but chiefely against poisons, and the bites and stings of venomous creatures. Now Clusius in his Auctarium at the end thereof giues this figure, with the following historie.
1 Because Garcias, saith he, cap. 42. l. 1. Aromatum hist. treating of 〈◊〉〈◊〉 writes, that Auicen calls it Gedwar; and saith that it is of the magnitude of an Acorne, and almost of the same shape, I in my notes at the end of that chapter affirmed that it was not knowne in Europe, and hard to be knowne. But in the yeare 1605, Iohn Pona sent me from Verona together with other things two roots written on by the name of Gedwar verum. They were not much vnlike a longish Acorne, or (that I may more truly compare them) the smaller bulbs of an Asphodil, or Anthora: the one of them was whole and not perished: the other rotten and broken, yet both of them very hard and sollid, of an ash colour without, but yellowish within, which tasted, seemed to possesse a heating facultie and acrimonie.
But although I can affirm nothing of certaintie of this root, yet I made the figure of the wholler of them to be exprest in a table, that so the forme might be conceiued in ones minde more easily, than by a naked description. Let the Studious thanke Pona for the knowledge hereof. Thus much Clusius.
2 In the 28 chapter of the first booke I gaue the figure of Zodoarie out of Clusius, hauing not at that time this figure of Lobel, which presents to your view both the long and the round, with the manner how they grow together, being not seuerall roots, but parts of one and the same.