ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, III. ix. 3-4 



reason being that it is less resinous, less soaked with 

 pitch, smoother, and of straighter grain.^ This aigis 

 is found in the larger trees, when, as they have fallen 

 down, the white outside part ^ has decayed ; when 

 this has been stripped off and the core left, it is 

 cut out of this with the axe ; and it is of a good 

 colour ^^-ith fine fibre. However the substance 

 which the torch-cutters of Mount Ida call the ' fig,' ^ 

 which forms in the fir and is redder in colour than 

 the resin, is found more in the ' male ' trees ; it has 

 an evil smell, not like the smell of resin, nor will it 

 burn, but it leaps away from the fire. 



■* Such are the kinds of fir which they make out, 

 the cultivated and the wild, the latter including the 

 'male' and the 'female' and also the kind which 

 bears no fruit. However the Arcadians say that 

 neither the sterile kind nor the cultivated is a fir, 

 but a pine ; for, they say, the trunk closely resembles 

 the pine and has its slendemess, its stature, and the 

 same kind^ of wood for purposes of joinery, the 

 trunk of the fir being thicker smoother and taller ; 

 moreover that the fir has many leaves, which are 

 glossy massed together '' and pendent, while in the 

 pine and in the above-mentioned cone-bearing tree '^ 

 the leaves are few and drier and stifFer ; though in 

 both the leaves are hair-like.^ Also, they say, the 

 pitch of this tree is more like that of the pine ; for 



* ToCra yevT} con j. R. Const, from G ; ravrd ye UMVAld. ; 

 Plin. 16. 45-49. 



* ravrh conj. W.; avrh Aid. 



" /3afle'a : Saaea conj. R. Const, c/. 3. 16. 2. 



"^ i.e. the cultivated invK-r) (so called). T. uses this peri- 

 phrasis to avoid begging the question of the name. 



® 6.fjL(pw he rpix- ins. here by Sch. ; in MSS. and Aid. the 

 words occur in § 5 after TtiTTfc^earepov. 



