CHAP, v SYLVA 29 r 



myrtus Erasantlca^ or candle-berry shrub (which our 

 plantations in Virginia, and other places have in 

 plenty) let it be admitted : It bears a berry, which 

 being boil'd in water, yields a suet or pinguid sub- 

 stance, of a green colour, which being scumm'd and 

 taken off, they make candles with, in the shape of 

 such as we use of tallow, or wax rather ; giving not 

 only a very clear and sufficient light, but a very 

 agreeable scent, and are now not seldom brought 

 hither to us, but the tree it self, of which I have seen 

 a thriving one. 



12. Lentiscus (a very beautiful evergreen) refuses 

 not our climate, protected with a little shelter, 

 amongst other exposed shrubs, by suckers and layers : 

 It is certainly an extraordinary astringent and dryer, 

 applicable in the hernia, strangury, and to stop fluxes; 

 closes and cures wounds, being infus'd in red-wine, 

 is also us'd to tinge hairs of that colour, to black and 

 brown. Not forgetting the best tooth-pickers in 

 the world, made of the wood ; but above all, the 

 gum for fastning loose-teeth in the gums ; the mas- 

 tick, gather'd from this profitable bush in the Island 

 of Scio ; beside other uses : And as the lentisc, so 

 may the 



1 3. Olive be admitted, tho' it produce no other 

 fruit than the verdure of the leaf ; nor will it kindly 

 breath our air, nor the less tender oleaster^ without 

 the indulgent winter-house take them in. But the 



14. Granata \malus punicd\ is nothing so nice. 

 There are of this glorious shrub three sorts, easily 

 enough educated under any warm shelter, even to 

 the raising hedges of them, nor indeed affects it so 

 much heat, as plentiful watering : They supported a 



-very severe winter in my garden, 1663, without any 



