360 pliny's natueal history. [Book XVI. 



not the case with those on the female tree. In the pitch-tree, 

 again, these kernels, which are very small and black, occupy 

 the whole of the catkin, which is smaller and more slender 

 than in the other varieties ; hence it is that the Greeks call 

 this tree by the name of phthirophoron. 29 In this tree, too, the 

 nuts on the male are more compressed, and less moist with 

 resin. 



CHAP. 20. — THE TEW, 



Not to omit any one of them, the yew zo is similar to these 

 other trees in general appearance. It is of a colour, however, 

 but slightly approaching to green, and of a slender form ; of 

 sombre and ominous aspect, and quite destitute of juice : it is 

 the only one, too, among them all, that bears a berry. In the 

 male tree the fruit is injurious ; indeed, in Spain more particu- 

 larly, the berries contain a deadly poison. 31 It is an ascertained 

 fact that travellers' vessels, 32 made in Gaul of this wood, for the 

 purpose of holding wine, have caused the death of those who 

 used them. Sextius says, that in Greece this tree is known by 

 the name of " smilax," and that in Arcadia it is possessed of so 

 active a poison, that those who sleep beneath it, or even take 

 food 33 there, are sure to meet their death from it. There are 

 authors, also, who assert that the poisons which we call at 

 the present day " toxica," and in which arrows are dipped, 

 were formerly called taxica, 34 from this tree. It has been 

 discovered, also, that these poisonous qualities are quite neu- 

 tralized by driving a copper nail into the wood of the tree. 



29 Or "louse-bearing." As Fee says, it is difficult to see the analogy. 



30 The Taxus baccata of Linnaeus. The account here given is in general 

 very correct. 



31 It is supposed that Pliny derives this notion as to the yew berry from 

 Julius Caesar, who says that " Cativulcus killed himself with the yew, a 

 tree which grows in great abundance in Gaul and Germany." It is, how- 

 ever, now known that the berry is quite innocuous ; but the leaves and 

 shoots are destructive of animal life. 



32 " Viatoria;" probably not unlike our travelling flasks and pocket-pis- 

 tols. This statement made by Pliny is not at all improbable. 



33 This statement does not deserve a serious contradiction. 



34 It is not improbable, however, that ro^ov, an "arrow," is of older 

 date than " taxus," as signifying the name of the yew. 



