BOOK XII. XXXI. 56-\\xii. 58 



that it has the leaf of a pear-tree, only smaller and 

 of a grass-green colour ; others that it resembles the 

 mastich and has a reddish leaf ; some that it is a kind 

 of terebinth, and that this was the view of King 

 Antigonus, to whom a plant was brought. King 

 Juba in his volumes dedicated to Gaius Caesar, son of 

 Augustus, whose imagination was fired by the fame 

 of Arabia, states that the tree has a twisted stem 

 and branches closely resembling those of the Pontic 

 maple and that it gives a juice like that of the 

 almond ; he says that trees of this description are to 

 be seen in Carmania and in Egypt, where they were 

 introduced under the influence of the Ptolemies when 

 they reigned there. It is well known that it has the 

 bark of a bay-tree, and some have said that the leaf 

 is also like that of the bay ; at all events that was the 

 case with the tree when it was grown at Sardis — for 

 the Kings of Asia also interested themselves in plant- 

 ing it. The ambassadors who have come to Rome 

 from Arabia in my time have made all these matters 

 still more uncertain, which may well surprise us, 

 seeing that even some sprigs of the incense-tree find 

 their way to Rome, on the evidence of which we 

 may beheve that the parent tree also is smooth and 

 tapering and that it puts out its shoots from a trunk 

 that is free from knots. 



XXXII. It used to be the custom, when there were seasom and 

 fewer opportunities of seUing frankincense, to gather ^i^ecHi^ 

 it only once a year, but at the present day trade intro- frankincense. 

 duces a second harvesting. The earUer and natural 

 gathering takes place at about the rising of the Dog- 

 star, when the summer heat is most intense. They 

 make an incision where the bark appears to be fuUest 

 of juice and distended to its thinnest ; and the bark is 



41 



