172 PLINY's NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XIII. 



however, is never eaten, but is always spit 19 out again, after 

 the juice has been extracted. In Arabia, the palm fruit is 

 said to have a sickly sweet taste, although Juba says that he 

 prefers the date found among the Arabian Sceriitse, 20 and to 

 which they give the name of "dablan," before those of any 

 other country for flavour. In addition to the above parti- 

 culars, it is asserted that in a forest of natural growth the 

 female 21 trees will become barren if they are deprived of the 

 males, and that many female trees may be seen surrounding a 

 single male with downcast heads and a foliage that seems to be 

 bowing caressingly towards it ; while the male tree, on the 

 other hand, with leaves all bristling and erect, by its exha- 

 lations, and even the very sight of it and the dust 22 from 

 off it, fecundates the others : if the male tree, too, should 

 happen to be cut down, the female trees, thus reduced to a state 

 of widowhood, will at once become barren and' unproductive. 

 So well, indeed, is this sexual union between them understood, 

 that it has been imagined even that fecundation may be en- 

 sured through the agency of man, by means of the blossoms 

 and the down 23 gathered from off the male trees, and, indeed, 

 sometimes by only sprinkling the dust from off them on the 

 female trees. 



CHAP. 8. HOW THE PALM-TREE IS PLANTED. 



Palm-trees are also propagated by planting ; 24 the trunk is 

 first divided with certain fissures two cubits in length which 

 communicate with the pith of the tree, and is then buried in 

 the earth. A slip also torn away from the root will produce 

 a sucker with vitality, and the same may be obtained from the 

 more tender among the branches. In Assyria, the tree itself 



19 This is said solely in relation to the date of Cyprus. 



20 Or " dwellers in tents;" similar to the modern Bedouins. 



21 Fee remarks, that in these words we find the first germs of the sexual 

 system that has been established by the modern botanists. He thinks that 

 it is clearly shown by this account, that Pliny was acquainted with the 

 fecundation of plants by the agency of the pollen, 



22 In allusion to the pollen, possibly. See the last Note. 



23 " Lanugine." It is possible that in the use of this word, also, he 

 may allude to the pollen. Under the term "pulvis," " dust," he probably 

 alludes in exaggerated terms to the same theory. 



24 The same methods of propagating the palm are still followed in the 

 East, and in the countries near the tropics. 



