CENTURY VI. 273 



as most of the particulars before mentioned, or else 

 an oily juice, which is apter to put out flowers than 

 leaves. 



592. Of plants, some are green all winter ; others 

 cast their leaves. There are green all winter, 

 holly, ivy, box, fir, yew, cypress, juniper, bays, rose 

 mary, &c. The cause of the holding green, is the 

 close and compact substance of their leaves, and the 

 pedicles of them. And the cause of that again is 

 either the tough and viscous juice of the plant, or the 

 strength and heat thereof. Of the first sort is holly, 

 which is of so viscous a juice as they make birdlime 

 of the bark of it. The stalk of ivy is tough, and 

 not fragile, as we see in other small twigs dry. Fir, 

 yieldeth pitch. Box is a fast and heavy wood, as we 

 see it in bowls. Yew is a strong and tough wood, 

 as we see it in bows. Of the second sort is juniper, 

 which is a wood odorate, and maketh a hot fire. 

 Bays is likewise a hot and aromatical wood ; and so 

 is rosemary for a shrub. As for the leaves, their 

 density appeareth, in that either they are smooth 

 and shining, as in bays, holly, ivy, box, &c. or in that 

 they are hard and spiry, ajs in the rest. And trial 

 would be made of grafting of rosemary, and bays, 

 and box, upon a holly-stock, because they are plants 

 that come all winter. It were good to try it also 

 with grafts of other trees, either fruit trees, or wild 

 trees, to see whether they will not yield their fruit, 

 or bear their leaves later and longer in the winter ; 

 because the sap of the holly putteth forth most in 

 the winter. It may be also a mezerion-tree, grafted 



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