Barometz

Barometz or Baranetz, the Tartarian lamb, once supposed to be a lamb which grew on a stem in the steppes west of the Volga, is merely the rhizome, or prostrate stem, of a tree-fern (Cibotiune Barometz), which is covered with yellow silky scales, and has a soft reddish fleshy interior. When inverted with four leaf-stalks retained as legs it does resemble a lamb. The silky down is the poco sempic or golden moss used by the Chinese as a styptic, its threads absorbing the serum of blood by capillary action, and thus, rapidly coagulating it.