BOOK XII. VII. 14-V111. 17 



will be specified among the fruit-trees. For the 

 present we will go through the real exotics, beginning 

 with the one most valuable for health. 



The citron or Assyrian apple, called by others the ThecUron. 

 Median apple, is an antidote against poisons. It has 

 the leaves of the strawberry-tree, but with prickles 

 running among them. For the rest, the actual fruit 

 is not eaten, but it has an exceptionally strong scent, 

 which belongs also to the leaves, and which pene- 

 trates garments stored with them and keeps off 

 injurious insects. The tree itself bears fruit at all 

 seasons, some of the apples faUing while others are 

 ripening and others just forming. Because of its 

 great medieinal value various nations have tried to 

 acchmatize it in their own countries, importing it in 

 earthenware pots provided with breathing holes for 

 the roots (and similarly, as it will be convenient to 

 record here so that each of my points may be men- 

 tioned only once, all plants that are to travel a 

 specially long distance are planted as tightly as 

 possible for transport) ; but it has refused to grow 

 except in Media and Persia. It is this fruit the pips 

 of which, as we have mentioned, the Parthian xii. 278. 

 grandees have cooked with their viands for the sake 

 of sweetening their breath. And among the Medes 

 no other tree is highly commended. 



VIII. We have already described the wool-bearing vi. 54. 

 trees of the Chinese in making mention of that race, 

 and we have spoken of the large size of the trees in vii. 21. 

 India. One of those pecuhar to India, the ebony, is hidian 

 spoken of in glowing terms by Virgil,<* who states that '^J^^^*^ 

 it does not grow in any other country. Herodotus,'' 

 however, prefers it to be ascribed to Ethiopia, stating 

 that the Ethiopians used to pay as tribute to the 



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