130 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XII. 



and baring the roots ; indeed, the cooler the roots are kept, the 

 better it is. 



CHAP. 34. THE TEEES WHICH PRODUCE MYRRH. 



The tree grows to the height of five cubits, and has thorns 

 upon it : the trunk is hard and spiral, and thicker than that 

 of the incense-tree, and much more so at the root than at the 

 upper part of the tree. Some authors have said that the bark 

 is smooth like that of the arbute, others, that it is rough and 

 covered with thorns : it has the leaf of the olive, but more wavy, 

 with sharp points at the edges : Juba says, however, that it 

 resembles the leaf of the olusatrum. Some again say that it 

 resembles the juniper, 15 only that it is rougher and bristling 

 with thorns, and that the leaves are of a rounder shape, though 

 they have exactly the taste of the juniper. There have been 

 some writers who have incorrectly asserted that both myrrh 

 and frankincense are the product of the same tree. 



CHAP. 35. THE NATURE AND VARIOUS KINDS OF MYRRH. 



Incisions are made in the myrrh-tree also twice a year, and at 

 the same season as in the incense- tree ; but in the case of the 

 myrrh- tree they are all made the way up from the root as far as 

 the branches which are able to bear it. The tree spontaneously 

 exudes, before the incision is made, a liquid which bears the 

 name of stacte, 16 and to which there is no rnyrrh that is supe- 

 rior. Second only in quality to this is the cultivated myrrh : 

 of the wild or forest kind, the best is that which is gathered in 

 summer. They give no tithes of myrrh to the god, because it 

 is the produce of other countries as well ; but the growers pay 

 the fourth part of it to the king of the Gebanitae. Myrrh is 

 bought up indiscriminately by the common people, and then 

 packed into bags ; but our perfumers separate it without any 

 difficulty, the principal tests of its goodness being its unctuous- 

 ness and its aromatic smell. (16.) There are several 17 kinds 



15 Theophrastus says the terebinth. 



16 From the Greek (rra£w, " to drop." Fee observes, that the moderns 

 know nothing positive as to the mode of extracting myrrh from the tree. 

 See the account given by Ovid, Met. B. x. 1. 500 et seq. of the transforma- 

 tion of Myrrha into this tree, — " The warm drops fall from the tree. The 

 tears, even, have their own honour ; and the myrrh that distils from the 

 bark bears the name of its mistress, and in no age will remain unknown." 



17 Fee remarks, that at the present day we are acquainted only with one 

 kind of myrrh ; the fragments which bear an impression like those of nails 



