THE CONIFEROUS PLANTS OF ITALY. 135 



grows on the Alps, would especially think of resin and of planks 

 when speaking of the Silver inhabiting the Apennines. 



8. The same author says that the Picea repullulat* and in- 

 deed we may clip the Spruce Fir without injury. 



9. The Abies has, according to him, a single root. This is 

 the case with the Silver, whose root descends like a post ; but 

 it is not so with the Spruce Fir.f 



10. Lastly, Vitruvius, speaking of wood for building brought 

 from the Apennines, mentions Abies, and not Picea.\ 



AYe may then look upon the Abies of the Romans as our 

 Silver, and their Picea as our Spruce Fir. The first grew, as it 

 does at present, on the Apennines — that is clear ; but we might 

 ask whether the latter, though not found there now, did not for- 

 merly grow on the same mountains. Pliny calls the Picea a 

 sad tree, which is placed as a sign before houses for the dead, 

 and which is used when green for funeral piles. § From its 

 being so frequently employed, we must suppose that the Spruce 

 Fir grew in the countries to the south of the Alps.|l Everything 

 is explained when we know that this tree, easily clipped, was in- 

 troduced into gardens ; Pliny expressly says so when he notices 

 the use of this tree in funerals ;1[ it is even probable that it was 

 cultivated for this express purpose. In another passage the 

 planted Picea is referred to.** Another proof that the Spruce 

 Fir did not grow wild in the Apennines is given us in a passage 

 from Vitruvius cited above, in which no mention is made of any- 

 thing but Abies. Another doubt may arise fiom Pliny saying 

 that the best pitch for wine-casks comes from Brutium (Cala- 

 bria), and is obtained from the Picea.\] But this argument is 

 sufficiently refuted, I think, by an analogous passage in another 

 author. In one of the chapters of Dionysius of Halicarnassus,|| 

 which the celebrated philologer Mai has discovered, the Conifers 

 found on the Sila mountain in Calabria are noticed, and mention 



* Pliny, xvi. 19. 



t Pliny, xvi. 56 — " (Radices) singtilares Abieti." 



X Vitruv. ii. 10 — " De Abiete supernate et infernate" is clearly on the 

 other and on this side of the Apennines, and not, as Bode suggests, beyond 

 and on this side of the Caspian Sea. Compare Pliny, xvi. 76 — " Romse 

 Abies infernas supernati praefertur." 



§ Pliny, xvi. 18 — "Feralis arbor, et funebri indicio ad fores posita ac 

 rogis vireus.'' 



II Compare Pliny, xvi. 14 — " Cortex et fagis, tilise, abieti, picese in magno 

 usxi agresti.' 



% Pliny, xvi. 18 — " Jam tamen et in domos recepta, tonsili facilitate."' _ 



** Pliny, ibid. — " Picea feritatis paulum mitigatte satu." Compare lib. 

 XV. s. 9 — " Picea sativa." 



ft Pliny, xvi. 25—" Pix in Italia ad vasa vino condendo maxime probatur 

 Brutia. Fit e picea; resina." Compare xvi. 22. 



XX Dion. Halicarn. xx. 15, 16. 



