.326 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XV- 



so extremely penetrating, 10 and the taste sour in the highest 

 degree. Sometimes the smell is of a more delicate n nature, 

 as in the quince, for instance ; while the fig has no odour 

 whatever. 



CHAP. 34. THE VAKIOTTS NATURES OF FRUIT. 



Thus much, then, for the various classes and kinds of fruit : 

 it will be as well now to classify their various natures within 

 a more limited scope. Some fruits grow in a pod which is 

 sweet itself, and contains a bitter seed : whereas in most kinds 

 of fruit the seed is agreeable to the palate, those which grow 

 in a pod are condemned. Other fruits are berries, with the 

 stone within and the flesh without, as in the olive and the 

 cherry : others, again, have the berry within and the stone 

 without, the case, as we have already stated, with the berries 

 that grow in Egypt. 12 



Those fruits, known as " pomes," have the same character- 

 istics as the berry fruits ; in some of them we find the body of 

 the fruit within and the shell without, as in the nut, for ex- 

 ample ; others, again, have the meat of the fruit without and 

 the shell within, the peach and the plum, for instance : the 

 refuse part being thus surrounded with the flesh, while in 

 other fruits the flesh is surrounded by the refuse part. 13 

 nuts are enclosed in a shell, chesnuts in a skin ; in chesnuts 

 the skin is taken off, but in medlars it is eaten with the rest. 

 Acorns are covered with a crust, grapes Avith a husk, and 

 pomegranates with a skin and an inner membrane. The mul- 

 berry is composed of flesh and juice, while the cherry consists 

 of juice and skin. In some fruits the flesh separates easily 

 from the woody part, the walnut and the date, for instance ; 

 in others it adheres, as in the case of the olive and the laurel 

 berry : some kinds, again, partake of both natures, the peach, 

 for example ; for in the duracinus 14 kind the flesh adheres to 

 the stone, and cannot be torn away from it, while in the other 



10 The reading here should be " acutissimus," probably, _ instead of 

 " acerrimus." The odour exists in the rind of the citron and in the outer 

 coat of the quince ; if these are removed, the fruit becomes inodorous. 



11 " Tenuis." He may possibly mean " faint." 



12 The fruit of the ben, or myrobalanus, the Balanites JEgyptiaca. See 



B. xiii. cc, 17 and 19. . « * * 



13 Yitium. u Hard-berry or nectarine. Bee c. 11. 



