Chap. 48.] THE MODE IN WHICH TEEES BEAR. .38/ 



CHAT. 47. — TREES WHICH ARE UNPRODUCTIVE IN CERTAIN PLACES'. 



Certain trees also become unproductive, owing to some fault 

 in the locality, such, for instance, as a coppice-wood in the 

 island of Pares, which produces nothing at all : in the Isle of 

 Rhodes, too, the peach-trees 22 never do anything more than 

 blossom. This distinction may arise also from the sex ; and 

 when such is the case, it is the male 23 tree that never produces. 

 Borne authors, however, making a transposition, assert that it 

 is the male trees only that are prolific. Barrenness may also 

 arise from a tree being too thickly covered with leaves. 



CHAP. 48. THE MODE IN WHICH TREES BEAR. 



Some among the fruit-trees 24 bear on both the sides of the 

 branches and the summit, the pear, for instance, the tig- 

 tree, and the myrtle. In other respects the trees are pretty 

 nearly of a similar nature to the cereals, for in them we find 

 the ear growing from the summit, while in the leguminous 

 varieties the pod grows from the sides. The palm, as we have 

 already 25 stated, is the only one that has fruit hanging down 

 in bunches enclosed in capsules. 



CHAP. 49. TREES IN WHICH THE FRUIT APPEARS BEFORE THE 



LEAVES. 



The other trees, again, bear their fruit beneath the leaves, 

 for the purpose of protection, with the exception of the fig, the 

 leaf of which is very large, and gives a great abundance of 

 shade ; hence it is that we find the fruit placed above it ; in 

 addition to which, the leaf makes its appearance after the fruit. 

 There is said to be a remarkable peculiarity connected with 

 one species of fig that is found in Cilicia, Cyprus, and Hellas ; 

 the fruit grows beneath the leaves, while at the same time the 

 green abortive fruit, that never reaches maturity, is seen grow- 

 ing on the top of them. There is also a tree that produces an 



22 See B. xv. c. 13. It is not impossible that Pliny may have mistaken 

 here the Persea, or Balanites iEgyptiaca, for the Persica, or peach. See p. 296. 



23 Fee remarks, that this expression is remarkable as giving a just notion 

 of the relative functions of the male and female in plants. He says that 

 one might almost be tempted to believe that they suspected something 

 of the nature and functions of the pistils and stamens. 



24 This statement, which is drawn from Theophrastus, is rather fanciful 

 than rigorously true. 25 B. xiii. c. 7. 



C C 2 



