BOOK XV. XI. 40-xii. 43 



which keeps worse : the longest time that it will last 

 after bcing plucked is two days, and it compels you 

 to put it on the market. 



XII. Afterwards comes a vast crowd of plums. Piums;tweiv 

 There is the parti-coloured plum, partly black and ^*^'** 

 partly white in colour, which is called the barley-phim 

 because it ripens at barley harvest ; and another 

 plum of the same colour, which is later and is larger in 

 size, called the donkey-plum from its inferior vahie. 

 The wax-plum and the purple plum are smaller in 

 size but more esteemed ; and there is also the 

 Armenian plum, imported from foreign parts, the c/. xvi. 

 only plum that recommends itself even by its scent. ^^^* 

 Plums grafted on a nut-tree show a remarkable 

 effrontery, displaying the appearance of the parent 

 tree and the juice of the adopted stock ; they take 

 their name from each, being cailed nut-plums. But 

 both the nut-plum and the peach and the wax-plum 

 and the wild plum, if stored in casks like grapes, will 

 prolong their hfe till another crop begins to come into 

 existence, but the remaining varieties, ripening 

 quickly, speedily pass off. Recently in Baetica the 

 name of apple-plum has begun to be given to plums 

 grafted on apple-trees, and that of almond-plum to 

 others grafted on almonds : the latter have the 

 kernel of an almond inside their stone ; and indeed 

 no other fruit has been more ingeniously crossed. 

 Among our foreign trees, we have ah-eady spoken of 

 the damson, named from Damascus in Syria ; it has 

 been grown in Italy for a long time, though it 

 has a larger stone and less flesh here than in its 

 country of origin, and here it never dries into 

 wrinkles, because it lacks its native sunshine. 

 With it can be mentioned its fellow-countryman 



317 



