Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, 1696

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Agnus scythicus or Planta Tartarica Barometz) is a legendary zoophyte of Central Asia, once believed to grow sheep as its fruit. It was believed the sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant. When all accessible foliage was gone, both the plant and sheep died. Underlying the legend is the cotton plant which was unknown in Northern Europe before the Norman conquest of Sicily. The vegetable lamb was believed to have blood, bones, and flesh like that of a normal lamb. This illustration from Henry Lee's 1887 book on the Vegetable Lamb was redrawn from an image that appeared in 1696 in Johann Zahn's Specula Physico-Mathematico-Historica Notabilium ac Mirabilium Sciendorum, in Qua Mundi Mirabilis Oeconomia.Norimbergae.

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