Behmeria
a genus of plants, order urticaceæ. From several species valuable fibers are obtained. B. frutescens, or puya, a plant growing wild in Nepaul and Sikkim, is the source of the celebrated pooah fiber, which rivals the best European flax for tenacity. This species attains the height of six or eight feet; but the stem is usually very slender. It is cut down for use when the seed is formed; the bark is then peeled off, dried, boiled with wood ashes, and beaten with mallets, to separate its component fibers.
BEOTIA (bē-ō'sha), a division of ancient Greece, lying between Attica and Phocis, and bounded E. and W. by the Eubœan Sea and the Corinthian Gulf respectively, had an area of 1,119 square miles. The whole country is surrounded by mountains, on the S. Mts. Cithæron and Parnes, on the W. Mt. Helicon, on the N. Mt. Parnassus and the Opuntian Mountains, which also closed it in on the E. The N. part is drained by the Cephissus, the waters of which form Lake Copais; the S. by the Asopus, which flows into the Eubean Sea. The inhabitants were of the Æolian race; most of the towns formed a kind of republic, of which Thebes was the chief city. Epaminondas and Pelopidas raised Thebes for a time to the highest rank among Grecian States. The term Bœotian was used by the Athenians as a synonym for dullness, but somewhat unjustly, since Hesiod, Pindar, the poetess Corinna, and Plutarch were Bœotians. Pop. about 70,000, mostly Albanians.