ASPHODELUS, (Encycl.) The Lancashire asphodel is thought to be very noxious to sheep, whenever, through poverty of pasture, they are necessitated to eat it; although they are said to improve much in their flesh at first, they afterwards die with symptoms of a diseased liver. This is the plant of which such wonderful tales have been told by Pauli, Bartholine, and others, of its softening the bones of such animals as swallow it; and which they thence called gramen ossifragum. Horned cattle eat it without any ill effect.