Mielul vegetal

Prima descrierere a mielului vegetal se află în paginile azurii ale cărţii lui John Mandeville, autor-călător prin oglinzile de aici şi de nicăieri. Astfel aflăm că planta-miel era făcută din carne, sânge şi oase, iar strălucire ei reală îi făcea pe lupi să-şi aşeze numaidecât cortul ospăţului.

De asemenea, mărturii despre Borametz (una dintre denumirile

plantei-animal) s-au găsit şi într-o carte evreiască scrisă, în anul 436, de Rabbi Jochanan:

 “Claude Duret, of Moulins, who, in his Histoire  Admirable des Plantes (1605), devotes to it a chapter entitled <<The Boramets of Scythia, or Tartary, true Zoophytes or plant-animals ; that is to say, plants living and sensitive like animals>> therein says :

<<I remember to have read some time ago in a very ancient Hebrew book […] written by a Jewish Rabbi Jochanan, assisted by others, in the year of salvation 436, that a certain personage named Moses Chusensis (he being a native of Ethiopia) affirmed, on the authority of Rabbi Simeon, that there was a certain country of the earth which bore a zoophyte, or plant-animal, called in the Hebrew ‘Jeduah’. It was in form like a lamb, and from its navel grew a stem or root by which this zoophyte or plant-animal was fixed, attached, like a gourd, to the soil below the surface of the ground, and, according to the length of its stem or root, it devoured all the herbage which it was able to reach within the circle of its tether. The hunters who went in search of this creature were unable to capture or remove it until they had succeeded in cutting the stem by well-aimed arrows or darts, when the animal immediately fell prostrate to the earth and died. Its bones being placed with certain ceremonies and incantations in the mouth of one desiring to foretell the future, he was instantly seized with a spirit of divination, and endowed with the gift of prophecy.>>” (The vegetable lamb of Tartary: a curious fable of  the cotton plant, Henry Lee).

Dintr-un tratat medieval aflăm că Borametz avea ochi, urechi şi tot învelişul anatomic al unui miel, că era acoperit cu lână - folosită la fabricarea hainelor -, că avea gust de peşte, iar sângele lui era dulce ca mierea. Pulberea obţinută din oasele animalului vegetal, dacă era înghiţită cu câţiva stropi din ploaia de noapte, vindeca insomniile, iar sângele rodiatic, înmulţit cu roua de primăvară, trata apatia şi visarea rostogolită – denumire dată melancoliei.