322 pliny's natural histoet. [Book XXI. 



"bitter; while sweet substances, on the other hand, are but 

 rarely odoriferous. Thus it is, too, that wine is more odorife- 

 rous than must, and all the wild plants more so than the cul- 

 tivated ones."*' Some flowers have a sweet smell at a distance, 

 the edge of which is taken off when they come nearer ; such is 

 the case with the violet, for instance. The rose, when fresh 

 gathered, has a more powerful smell at a distance, and dried,^^ 

 when brought nearer. All plants have a more penetrating 

 odour, also, in spring ^' and in the morning ; as the hour of 

 midday approaches, the scent becomes gradually weakened. ^^ 

 The flowers, too, of young plants are less odoriferous than those 

 of old ones ; but it is at mid- age ^ that the odour is most pene- 

 trating in them all. 



The rose and the crocus ^^ have a more powerful smell when 

 gathered in fine weather, and all plants are more powerfully 

 scented in hot climates than in cold ones. In Egypt, however, 

 the flowers are far from odoriferous, owing to the dews and 

 exhalations with which the air is charged, in consequence of 

 the extended surface of the river. Some plants have an agree- 

 able, though at the same time extremely powerful smell ; some, 

 again, while green, have no^^ smell at all, owing to the excess 

 of moisture, the buceros for example, which is the same as 



exceptions ; for instance, quassia wood, which is inodorous and yet in- 

 tensely bitter." The essential oil, he remarks, elaborated in the tissue of 

 the corolla, is the ordinary source of the emanations of the flower. 



^^ Fee remarks that cultivation gives to plants a softer and more aqueous 

 consistency, which is consequently injurious to the developement of the 

 essential oil. 



31 Theophrastus, from whom this is borrowed, might have said witli 

 more justice, Fee remarks, that certain roses have more odour when dried 

 than when fresh gathered. Such is the case, he says, with the Provence 

 rose. Fresh roses, however, have a more pronounced smell, the nearer 

 they are to the olfactory organs. 



^■- This is hy no means invariably the case : in fact, the smell of most 

 odoriferous plants is most powerful in summer. 



23 Because the essential oils evaporate more rapidly. 



'* With Littre, we adopt the reading "aetate," "mid-age," and 

 not "aestate," "midsummer," for although the assertion would be in 

 general correct, Pliny would contradict the statement just made, that 

 all plants have a more penetrating odour in spring. This reading is sup- 

 ported also by the text of Theophrastus. 



35 Or saffron. 



36 This is a just observation, but the instances might be greatly ex- 

 tended, as Fee says. 



