ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, IV. ii. 5-7 



deciduous. It bears abundant fruit and at every 

 season, for the new fruit always overtakes that of 

 last year. It ripens its fruit at the season of the 

 etesian winds : the other fruit they gather somewhat 

 unripe and store ^ it. In size it is as large as a pear, 

 but in shape it is oblong, almond-shaped, and its 

 colour is grass-green. It has inside a stone like the 

 plum, but much smaller and softer; the flesh is 

 sweet and luscious and easily digested ; for it does 

 no hurt if one eats it in quantity. The tree has good 

 roots as to length thickness and number. Moreover 

 its wood is strong and fair in appearance, black like 

 the nettle-tree : out of it men make their images 

 beds tables and other such things. 



2 The balanos gets its name from its fruit ^ ; its leaf 

 is like that of the myrtle * but it is longer. The 

 tree is of a good stoutness ^ and stature, but not of a 

 good shape, being crooked. The perfumers use the 

 husks of the fruit, which they bruise ; for this is 

 fragrant, though the fruit itself is useless. In size 

 and appearance it is like the fruit of the caper ; the 

 wood is strong and useful for shipbuilding and other 

 purposes. 



^ The tree called the doum-palm is like the date- 

 palm ; the resemblance is in the stem and the leaves, 

 Ijut it differs in that the date-palm is a tree with a 

 single undivided stem, while the other, as it increases, 

 splits and becomes forked,*^ and then each of the two 



2 Plin. 13. 61. 



• i.e. it is like an acorn [BaKavoz). 



* fivppivjis MVPAld.; fivplxrii U. 



' firrox" conj. Sch. ; €v^a0(s \J ; oTaflei Ald.H. 

 « Plin. 1.3. 62. 



^ cf. 2. 6. 9, where the same tree is evidently indicated. 

 lUpovv conj. Salm., Seal., etc.; ixpov UAld.H. 



297 



