320 pliny's NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XV. 



instance! In the flesh of the mulberry there is a juice of a 

 vinous flavour, and the fruit assumes three different colours, 

 being at first white, then red, and ripe when black. The 

 mulberry blossoms one of the very last, 59 and yet is among 

 the first to ripen : the juice of the fruit, when ripe, will stain 

 the hands, but that of the unripe fruit will remove the marks. 

 It is in this tree that human ingenuity has effected the least 

 improvement 60 of all ; there are no varieties here, no modifica- 

 tions effected by grafting, nor, in fact, any other improvement 

 except that the size of the fruit, by careful management, has 

 been increased. At Koine, there is a distinction made between 

 the mulberries of Ostia and those of Tusculum. A variety 

 grows also on brambles, but the flesh of the fruit is of a very 

 different nature. 61 



CHAP. 28. THE FRUIT OF THE ARBUTUS. * 



The flesh of the ground-strawberry 62 is very different to 

 that of the arbute-tree, 63 which is of a kindred kind : indeed, 

 this is the only instance in which we find a similar fruit grow- 

 ing upon a tree and on the ground. The tree is tufted and 

 bushy ; the fruit takes a year to ripen, the blossoms of the 

 young fruit flowering while that of the preceding year is 

 arriving at maturity. Whether it is the male tree or the 

 female that is unproductive, authors are not generally agreed. 



This is a fruit held in no esteem, in proof of which it has 



words to denote the difference between " acinus" and " bacca." The lat- 

 ter is properly the " berry ;" the grape being the type of the " acinus." 



59 See B. xvi. c. 41. The mulberry is the Moras nigra of modern 

 naturalists. It is generally thought that this was the only variety known 

 to the ancients ; but Fee queries, from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, 

 Avhich represents the mulberry as changing from white to blood colour, 

 that the white mulberry was not unknown to them ; but through some 

 cause, now unknown, was gradually lost sight of. 



60 This is still the case with the mulberry. 



61 See B. xvi. c. 71, and B. xxiv. c. 73. He alludes to the blackberry. 



62 The common strawberry, the Fragaria vesca of Linnaeus. See B. xxi. 

 c. 50. A native of the Alps and the forests of Gaul, it was unknown to 

 the Greeks. 



63 The Arbutus unedo of Linnseus. It is one of the ericaceous trees, 

 and its fruit bears a considerable resemblance to the strawberry — otherwise 

 there is not the slightest affinity between them. The taste of the arbute 

 is poor indeed, compared to that of the strawberry. 



