Bar'ometz

Bar'ometz, or Tartarian or Scythian Lamb, the prostrate stem of a fern (Aspidium barometz) which grows in the salt-plains near the Caspian Sea. It is shaggy with yellow silken down, from which the ancients are said to have woven costly garments. The hairy covering, and a rough resemblance to an animal, seem to have formed the basis of the extraordinary opinions which were current in Russia and elsewhere, as late as a century ago, in regard to this fern. It was believed to be at once plant and animal, to grow on a stalk, but yet to have head, eyes, ears, and limbs like a lamb, to eat grass, and in other marvellous ways to show forth 'the glory of the Creator to whom all things are possible' (Herberstein, 1563). The word is an erroneous form of the Russian baranetz, diminutive of baran, 'ram.' Erman (Travels in Siberia, vol. i. p. 111) supposes that these fables simply originated from embellished accounts of the cotton-plant. The red viscid juice is sometimes used as an astringent.