CHAP, v S Y L V A 75 



CHAPTER V. 



Of the Beech. 



i . The beech, [fagus] (of two or three kinds) and 

 numbred amongst the glandiferous trees, I rank here 

 before the martial ash, because it commonly grows 

 to a greater stature. But here I may not omit a note 

 of the accurate critic Palmerius, upon a passage in 

 Theophrastus, 1 where he animadverts upon his inter- 

 preter, and shews that the ancient 4>rjyoc was by no 

 means the beech, but a kind of oak ; for that the 

 figure of the fruit is so widely unlike it, that being 

 round, this triangular ; and both Theophrastus and 

 Pausanias make it indeed a species of oak, (as already 

 we have noted in cap. HI.) wholly differing in trunk, 

 as well as fruit and leaf ; to which he adds (what 

 determines the controversie) KvXov rfc ^yov lo-^ypoTarov 

 KOI aoTjTTfo-aTov, &c. that it is of a Jirmfr timber ', not 

 obnoxious to the 'worm ; neither of which can so 

 confidently be said of the beech. Yet La Cerda too 

 seems guilty of the same mistake : But leaving this, 

 there are of our fogi, two or three kinds with us ; 

 the mountain (where it most affects to grow) which 

 is the whitest, and most sought after by the turner ; 

 and the campestrial or wild, which is of a blacker 

 colour, and more durable. They are both to be 

 rais'd from the mast, and govern 'd like the oak (of 

 which amply) and that is absolutely the best way of 

 furnishing a wood ; unless you will make a nursery, 

 and then you are to treat the mast as you are instructed 



1 Theophrast. 1. 3. c. 9. 



