The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
The Vegetable Lamb in a 17th century illustration
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Latin: Agnus scythicus or Planta Tartarica Barometz) is a semi-legendary plant of central Asia, believed to grow sheep as its fruit. The sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical and grazed the land around the plant. When all the plants were 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 (ram)).
This plant produces a woolly mass supported by a number of stems; its resemblance to a lamb is weak. The Tradescant Museum of Garden History has one under glass.
Cultural references
A plant called Borometz is mentioned in Chapter 22 of Simplicius Simplicissimus, a picaresque novel by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, when the protagonist describes his abduction by Tartars.
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary appears on the album cover of Guided by Voices' Vampire on Titus.
In the PlayStation 2 game Odin Sphere, Baromett seeds can be planted and grow to be plants that bear two sheep.
External links
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