BOOK XV. XXIX. 88-91 



being thin or thick and full of recesses or uniform. 

 It is the only fruit which nature has enclosed in a 

 covering made of pieces fitted together ; for the shell 

 is dividedinto two boat-shaped pieces, and the kernel 

 is further separated into four sections with a woody 

 membrane running between them. In all the other Hneei. 

 kinds of nut the whole is in one sohd piece, as for 

 instance in the hazel, itself also a sort of nut, the 

 previous form of its name having been AbelUna, 

 after the name of its place of origin ; " but it came into 

 Asia and Greece from Pontus and is consequently 

 also called the Pontic nut. This nut also is pro- 

 tected by a soft beard, but the shell and the kernel 

 are formed of one sohd round piece.^ It also is 

 roasted. The kernel has a navel in its centre. A 

 third variety of the nut class is the almond, which ^imonc 

 has an outer integument hke that of the walnut but 

 thinner, and also a second covering consisting of a 

 shell ; but the kernel is unhke a walnut's in its 

 breadth <^ and its hard part is more bitter. It is 

 doubtful whether this tree existed in Italy in the 

 time of Cato, as he calls '^ almonds * Greek nuts,' a 

 name which some people also retain in the class of 

 walnuts. Beside these Cato adds a smooth, hard 

 kind of hazel-nut, the Palestrina nut, which he praises 

 very highly and says can be kept fresh and green by 

 being potted and buried in the ground. At the 

 present day the almonds of Thasos and Alba are 

 famous, and two kinds grown at Taranto, one with a 

 brittle shell and the other with a liard shell, wlnch are 

 very large in size and very Httle rounded in shape ; 

 also famous is the ' soft nut,' which breaks through 

 its shell. Some interpret the word for walnut as 

 honorific and say it means ' Jove's acorn.' ^ I 



35^ 



