ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, III. xv. 1-3 



unbranched stems without knots ; though some of 

 these are long and stout. Nevertheless it also submits 

 to cultivation. The cultivated form differs in produc- 

 ing better fruit and larger leaves ; in both forms the 

 leaf has a jagged edge : the leaf of the alder most 

 closely resembles it, but is broader, and the tree itself 

 is bigger. ^ The filbert is always more fruitful if it 

 has its slender boughs cut off. - There are two kinds 

 of each sort; some have a round, others an oblong 

 nut ; that of the cultivated ti-ee is paler, and it fruits 

 best in damp places. The wild tree becomes 

 cultivated by being transplanted. Its bark is smooth,' 

 consisting of one layer, thin glossy and with peculiar 

 white blotches on it. The wood is extremely tough, 

 so that men make baskets even of the quite thin 

 twigs, having stripped them of their bark, and of 

 the stout ones when they have whittled them. Also 

 it has a small amount of yellow heart-wood, which 

 makes * the branches hollow. Peculiar to these trees 

 is the matter of the catkin, as we mentioned.^ 



^ The terebinth has a ' male ' and a ' female ' form. 

 The ' male ' is barren, which is why it is called 

 male'; the fruit of one of the 'female' forms is 

 red from the first and as large as an unripe " lentil ; 

 ~he other produces a green fruit Avhich subsequently 

 :aims red, and, ripening at the same time as the 

 grapes, becomes eventually black and is as large as a 

 Ijean, but resinous and somewhat aromatic. About 

 Ida and in Macedonia the tree is low shrubby and 

 twisted, but in the Syrian Damascus, Avhere it 

 abounds, it is tall and handsome ; indeed they say 



* I Akl.H.; ^ W. with U. cf. 3. 13. 4. 

 s 3. 7. 3. « Plin. 13. 54. 



" KoX before iirfwrov oin. St. 



