62 S Y L V A BOOK in 



more come after them. At which the Emperor was 

 so well pleas'd, that he gave him an hundred florins. 

 Was not this like that of Laertes to Ulysses ? 



But before we go farther with the history of the 

 stature and magnitude of trees, we are not to con- 

 clude as if all those trees and plants, which arrive to 

 that enormous stature and bulk we have mentioned, 

 were not to be found in other countries, both of the 

 same, and other species ; but that even of those 

 exoticks, and divers of our own, which seem pigmies 

 and dwarfs, compared to those giants in their native 

 climate, are so much greater than in ours ; since we 

 find what we account but shrubs, are divers of them 

 well-grown trees, and prosper into useful timber ; 

 such as juniper, (emulating the tall cedar) sabine, 

 tamarisk, cornel, philyrea, granade, lentiscus, thuya, 

 laurel, bays, and even rosemary, (and other frutexes 

 and lignous plants) superior in growth and stature, 

 (than with us) where they spontaneously emerge. 

 Thus not only the white-mulberry wonderfully out- 

 strips ours, but those of much smaller stature ; as the 

 arbutus, growing on Mount Athos, which became a 

 spreading tree ; so the cypress in Candy to timber, 

 fit for vast beams, and planks of 4 foot breadth: The 

 larch overtopping the fir ; nay, the rnyrtil with us 

 but a bush, make staves for spears ; the oleander, & 

 humilis genista ; nay, the rhododendron posts and 

 rafters ; and even herbaceous suffrutages, and amongst 

 the culinary furniture ; a grain of mustard springing 

 to a tree, whose branches afford harbour to the birds 

 of the air ; and the very hyssop, for a stalk that car- 

 ried a sponge to the mouth of our Blessed Lord on 

 the Cross. We are told by Josephus, in Macherontis's 

 reign, there was a plant of rue growing, and was equal 



