372 plots:' S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XVI. 



of all for the nuptial ceremony ; from the circumstance, as 

 Massurius assures us, that the shepherds, on the occasion of 

 the rape of the Sabine women, made their torches of the wood 

 of this tree : at the present day, however, the woods of the 

 yoke-elm and the hazel are more generally employed for this 

 purpose. 



CHAP. 31. TREES WHICH GROW ON A DRY SOIL: THOSE WHICH 



ARE FOUND IN WET LOCALITIES : THOSE WHICH ARE EOUND IN 

 BOTH .INDIFFERENTLY. 



The cypress, the walnut, the chesnut, and the laburnum, 24 

 are averse to water. This last tree is also a native of the 

 Alps, and far from generally known : the wood is hard and 

 white, 25 and the flowers, which are a cubit 26 in length, no bee 

 will ever touch. The shrub, too, known as Jupiter's beard, 27 

 manifests an equal dislike to water : it is often clipped, and is 

 employed in ornamental gardening, being of a round, bushy 

 form, with a silvery leaf. The willow, the alder, the poplar, 28 

 the siler, 29 and the privet, 30 so extensively employed for making 

 tallies, 31 will only grow in damp, watery places ; which is the 



bride a torch of white thorn. This thorn was, not improbably the " Cra- 

 taegus oxyacantha" of Linnseus, which bears a white flower. See B. xxiv. 



24 The Cytisus laburnum of Linnaeus, also known as " false ebony," still 

 a native of the Alps. 



25 But blackish in the centre; whence its name of false ebony. 

 25 Meaning the clusters of the flowers. 



27 The Anthyllis barba Jovis of modern botanists. The leaves have 

 upon them a silvery down, whence the name " argyrophylla," given to it 

 by Msench. 



2 § But in c. 30., he says that the poplar grows on hilly or mountainous 



declivities. 



29 This tree has not been satisfactorily identified ; but Fee is of opinion 

 that it is probably a variety of the willow, the Salix vitellina of Linnaeus. 

 Snrengel thinks that it is the Salix capraea. 



* 3 <> The Ligustrum vulgare of Linnaeus. It has black fruit and a white 

 flower, and is rendered famous by the lines of Virgil— Eel. ii. 17 : 

 " formose puer, nimium ne crede colori ; 

 Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur." 

 It is evidently this juxtaposition that has prompted Pliny to mention the 

 v.iccinium in the succeeding passage. In B. xii. c. 51, and B. xxiv. c. 45, 

 Plinv seems inclined to confound this shrub with the Cyprus, the Lawsonia 

 inermis of Linnaeus, the Henna of the east, a totally different plant. 



n Wooden tallies used by public officers in keeping their accounts. They 

 were employed till the middle ages. 



