BOOK XIII. XI. 53-xiv. 56 



favour, while its actual timber lasts for ever, and 

 conscquently it has been the regular practice to use 

 it even for making statues of the gods — the Apollo 

 Sosianus in a shrine at Rome, which was brought" 

 from Seleucia, is made of cedar-wood. There is a 

 tree resembhng the cedar in Arcadia, and a shrub in 

 Phrygia is called the cedrys. 



XII. Syria also has the turpentine-tree. Of this The 

 the male variety has no fruit, but the female has two '^^^'"'^- 

 kinds of fruit, one of them ruddy and the si;^e of a 

 lentil, while the other is pale, and ripens at the same 

 time as the grape ; it is no larger in size than a bean, 

 has a rather agreeable scent, and is sticky to the 

 touch. Round \Iount Ida in the Troad and in Mace- 

 donia this is a low-growing shrub-Hke tree, but at 

 Damascus in Syria it is big. Its wood is fairly flexible 

 and remains sound to a great age ; it is of a shiny 

 black colour. The flower grows in clusters hke the 

 ohve, but is crimson in colour, and the foUage is thick. 

 It also bears foUicles out of which come insects resem- 

 bhng gnats, and which produce a sticky resinous fluid 

 which also bursts out from its bark. XIII. Also the The 

 male sumach-tree of S}Tia is productive, the female ^"'"^ 

 being barren ; the leaf is that of an elm only a Uttle 

 longer, covered with down, and the footstalks of the 

 leaves ahvays lying alternately in opposite directions ; 

 the branches are slender and short. The sumach is 

 used for bleaching leather. The seed, which re- 

 sembles a lentil, turns red at the same time as the 

 grapes ; it is caUed rhus and is required for certain 

 drugs. 



XIV. Egypt ako has many kinds of trees not found The 

 anywhere else, before aU a fig, which is consequently ^^^ '"" '^" 

 caUed the Eg}-ptian fig. The tree resembles a mul- 



131 



