VEGETABLE LAMB OF TARTARY

The 'Vegetable Lamb of Tartary' (Latin: ''Agnus scythicus'' or ''Planta Tartarica Barometz'') is a mythical plant of central Asia, believed to grow sheep as its fruit. The sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant. When all the grazing material was gone, both the plant and sheep died. 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', 'Barometz' and the 'Borametz' (pronounced 'Baranetz', from russian 'baran' (''he-sheep'')).

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External links

External links

★ Legend of the Lamb-Plant

★ Vegetable Lamb at pantheon.org

★ Note to Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, III.28