PISTACIA. 321 



The Pistacia tree was cultivated in England in 1570. 

 It flowers in April and May. It produces its nuts in 

 this country ; but our summers are not warm enough 

 to ripen them. In the Levant, the nut ripens in Sep- 

 tember. The kernel is of a pale green colour, sweet, 

 and not unpleasant to the taste; it is covered with a 

 gray, or more commonly a red skin, and enclosed within 

 a double shell, of which the outermost is dry, membra- 

 neous, and red ; the inner, brittle, smooth, and white. 



These nuts, taken in wine, were supposed in old times 

 to be a preservative against the bite of all manner of 

 wild beasts. It is probably to this notion Cowley refers 

 in the following couplet : 



" The firm pistachio next appeared in view, 

 Proud of her fruit, that serpents can subdue." 



PLANTS, book 5. 



The reader v^ill remember the lamb fed with pistachio 

 nuts, which formed a part of the Barmecide"^ feast. 



An oil is extracted from the nut of the Pistacia vera, 

 which, having neither taste nor smell, is used in the East 

 as a menstruum for the extraction of the perfume of 

 flowers, as jasmines, roses, &c. 



The Pistacia terebinthus, or Common Turpentine 

 tree, French, Terebinthe ; Italian, Terebinto, is a 

 native of Barbary and the south of Europe; it has 

 been cultivated here since 1730, and flowers in June 

 and July. Cyprus, or Chio turpentine is obtained 

 from this tree, by wounding the bark in several places 

 in the month of July. A space of about three inches is 

 left between the wounds ; from these the turpentine drops 

 upon stones placed underneath, upon which it becomes 

 so much condensed by the coldness of the night, as to 

 admit of being scraped off with a knife, which is always 



