Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

The Vegetable Lamb in a 17th century illustration

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary is a semi-legendary plant of central Asia, believed to grow sheep as its fruit. Although it owed its currency in medieval thought as a way of explaining the existence of cotton, underlying the myth is a real plant, Cibotium barometz, a fern of the genus Cibotium. It was known under various other names including the Scythian Lamb, the Borometz, and the Borametz.

External links

*www.nal.usda.gov Legend of the Lamb-Plant
*www.pantheon.org Vegetable Lamb
*webhome.idirect.com Barbary Lamb
*Note to Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, III.28

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