Chap. 19.] THE LARCH. 359 



the roots are once burnt, will not throw out fresh shoots, 

 which the pitch-tree will do, as was found to be the case in the 

 island of Lesbos, after the Pyrrhaean grove had been burnt 

 there. 



In the same species too, the variety of sex- 7 is found to con- 

 stitute a considerable difference : the male is the shorter tree, 

 and has a harder wood ; while the female is taller, and bears a 

 leaf more unctuous to the feel, smooth and free from all 

 rigidity. The wood of the male tree is hard and awry, and 

 consequently not so well suited for carpenters' work ; while 

 that of the female is softer, as may be very easily perceived on 

 the application of the axe, a test, in fact, which, in every 

 variety, immediately shows us which trees are males ; the axe 

 in such case meeting with a greater resistance, falling with 

 a louder noise, and being withdrawn from the wood with con- 

 siderably greater difficulty : the wood of the male tree is more 

 parched too, and the root is of a blacker hue. In the vicinity of 

 Mount Ida, in Troas, the circumstance whether the tree grows 

 in the mountain districts or on the sea-shore, makes another 

 considerable difference. In Macedonia and Arcadia, and in the 

 neighbourhood of Elis, the names of the several varieties have 

 been totally altered, and it has not been agreed by authors 

 which name ought to be given to each : we have, therefore, 

 contented ourselves with employing the Roman denominations 

 solely. 



The fir is the largest of them all, the female being the taller 

 of the two ; the wood, too, is softer and more easily worked. 

 This tree is of a rounder form than the others, and its leaves 

 are closely packed and feathered, so as not to admit of the 

 passage of rain ; the appearance, too, of the tree is altogether 

 more cheerful, From the branches of these different varieties, 

 with the sole exception of the larch, 28 there hang numbers of 

 scaly nuts of compact shape, like so many catkins. The nuts 

 found upon the male fir have a kernel in the fore-part, which is 



27 Pliny is in error here, there being no distinction of sex in the coni- 

 ferous trees. All that he relates relative to the differences between the 

 male and female pine is consequently false. He has, however, in this in- 

 stance, only perpetuated an erroneous opinion of Theophrastus. 



28 This is an erroneous statement. The larch has its cone, as well as 

 the rest. It is possible, however, that its small size may have caused it to 

 be overlooked by Pliny. 



