352 pliny's natueal histoet. [Book XVI. 



to a small round ball that is employed in medicine for its 

 caustic properties. It grows on the fir likewise, the larch, 

 the pitch-tree, the linden, the nut-tree, and the plane, and 

 remains on the tree throughout the winter, after the leaves have 

 fallen. It contains a kernel very similar to that of the pine- 

 nut, and increases in size during the winter. In spring the 

 ball opens throughout, and it finally drops when the leaves 

 are beginning to grow. 



Such is the multiplicity of the products borne by the robur 

 in addition to its acorns ; and not only these, but mushrooms' 6 

 as well, of better or worse quality, the most recent stimulants 

 that have been. discovered for the appetite ; these last are found 

 growing about its roots. Those of the quercus are the most 

 highly esteemed, while those of the robur, the cypress, and 

 the pine are injurious. 77 The robur produces mistletoe 78 also, 

 and, if we may believe Hesiod, 79 honey as well : indeed, it is 

 a well-known feet, that a honey 80 -like dew falling from heaven, as 

 we have already mentioned, 81 deposits itself upon the leaves of 

 this tree in preference to those of any other. It is also well 

 known that the wood of this tree, when burnt, produces a 

 nitrous 82 ash. 



amentum of the botanists ; but it is doubtful if Pliny attaches this meaning 

 to the word, as the lime or linden-tree has no catkin, but an inflorescence 

 of a different character. It is not improbable that, under this name, he 

 alludes to some excrescence. 



™ These were the " boletus' 7 and the " suillus ;" the last of which seem 

 only to have been recently introduced at table in the time of Pliny. See 

 tj xxii c* 47* 



"« He alludes clearly to fungi of radically different qualities, as the na- 

 ture of the trees beneath which they grow cannot possibly influence them, 

 any further than by the various proportions of shade they afford, lhe soil, 

 however, exercises great influence on the quality of the fungus ; growing 

 upon a hill, it may be innoxious, while in a wet soil it may be productive 

 f death. 78 See cc. 93, 94, and 95, of this Book. 



79 Works and Days, 1. 230. 



80 Pliny seems to have here taken in a literal sense, what has been said 

 figuratively by Virgil, Eel. iv. 1. 26 : 



u Et durte quercus sudabunt roscida mella ; 

 and by Ovid, in relation to the Golden Age, Met. i. 113 :. 



" Flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella." 

 Fee remarks, that we find on the leaf of the lime-tree a thin, sugary de- 

 posit left by insects, and that a species of manna exudes from the Coniferae, 

 as also the bark of the beech. This, however, is never the case with the 



oak 81 B - xi - c - 12 - • „ 



82 By this word, Fee observes, we must not understand the word " nitre, 



