OCR Text |
Show ' PAPYRUS GROWS IN ITALY J Plants Are Green-Stemmed Llko Reeds or Bamboo and Have '( Spray of Flowers at Top. Syracuse, !n Sicily, Is the one plfico In the world where pfipyrus Btlll grows wild. Even in Eypt, homo of Its origin, it Is extinct. ( And the origin of thnt papyrus fs JP a charming episode In history, writes Henry James Forman. i Hlero, king of Syracuse, at about 0 the time Theocritus was nt his 4 court composing the Idyls, built nnd fitted out a marvelous ship v equipped with gardens, stalls for -! horses, and stairways and columns of Teorminhiu marble n ship of - 4,200 tons In those days. Archimedes Archime-des doubtless; helped to build It a present to Ptolemy of Egypt ' As a part of the acknowled?:- ment of the gift from Alexandria rt came the papyrus planted along the j p banks of the Anapo and there it has bcn growing ever since. " The- papyrus plants are green- jl 6teinmort like reeds or bamboo, thj v thickness of a man's wrist. -rffi a ', circular su'-i..'1 'Iirflvers at the 1 'lA-p. ...uiue among plants. Har-' Har-' per'a Magazine. |