138 THE CONIFEROUS PLANTS OF ITALY. 



could be brought to Rome, it would be very advantageous, be- 

 cause they might use it against fire by placing it under the 

 eaves of the roofs. He also mentions a honey-coloured juice 

 obtained from it, which he says is used against Ethisie. The 

 mistake with respect to the incombustibility of the Larch is 

 easily explained ; for when its wood has been long exposed to 

 air, and especially to frost and snow, it burns with difficulty. 



5. Pliny's remark that the Larch grows in the same places as 

 the Spruce Fir* confirms what has just been said about the geo- 

 grapliical position of this tree ; the same conclusion may be 

 arrived at from another passage from the same author. He says, 

 that at Home, a bridge (po?is naumachiarius') over a place where 

 sea-fights were represented had been burnt, and that the Emperor 

 Tiberius ordered Larches to be felled in Rhetia, i. e. in the Alps, 

 to repair it.f He afterwards^ notices the greatest tree that had 

 been seen in Rome at his time: it was exhibited as a curiosity 

 by Tiberius on this same bridge : it was kept till the building of 

 Nero's amphitheatre; it was a trvmk of a Larch 120 feet long 

 and 2 feet thick. 



We have remarked above that the localities in which the 

 Cypress is found in Italy show that it is exotic. Pliny says that 

 it was a foreign tree, brought from Crete, and difficult to culti- 

 vate ;§ he thinks that tlie reason Cato calls it Tarentine is that 

 it was first brought to Tarentum. || 



According to a remark of Pliny's, borrowed from Theo- 

 phrastuSjIF the pyramidal variety of the Cypress grows in Crete, 

 on the top of Mount Ida and the White Mountains, which are 

 covered with eternal snow ; a circumstance that surprises Pliny, 

 since elsewhere it only prospers in warm countries.** Theo- 

 phrastus, however, merely says that it is said to grow on the 



* Pliny, xvi. 19 — " Situs idem (ac picece)." 



f Pliny, xvi. 74 — " Sic certe Tiberius Caesar concremato ponte nauma- 

 chiario larices ad restituendum cadi in Rha;tia prsefinivit.' 



I Pliny, xvi. 76 — " Amplissima arbonim ad hoc sevi existimatur Romse 

 visa, quam propter miraculam Ti. Csesar in eodem ponte naumachiario ex- 

 posuerat advectam cum reliqua materia : duravit ad Neronis principis am- 

 phitheatrum. Fuit autem trabs e larice, longa pedes 120, bipedali crassi- 

 tudine aqualis." 



§ Pliny, xvi. GO — " Cupressus advena et difficillime nascentium fuit — huic 

 patria insula Creta." 



II Pliny, Udd. — " Quum Cato Tarentinam earn appellat : credo quod 

 primum eo venerit.'' 



^ Tlteophrast. Hist. Plant, iv. 1. 



** Pliny, xvi. 60 — " Ilia (Cupressus femiaa : pyramidalis) vero etiam non 

 appellato solo, ac sponte, maximeque inldseis raontibus et quos albos vocant, 

 summisque jugis, unde nives nuuquam absunt, plurima, quod miremur ; alibi 

 non nisi in tempore provenieus." 



