BOOK XV. XXXIV. 114-117 



used and serves as fruit, for instance the cuci'* which 

 we spoke of as growing in Egypt. Some fruits have xiii. 62. 

 a double refuse-covering, as in the case of chestnuts 

 and almonds and walnuts. Some have a threefold 

 structure — there is flesh and then shell and then 

 again a seed inside the shell — for instance peaches. 

 Some fruits grow in clusters, for instance grapes and 

 sorbs, the latter cHnging all round the branches and 

 weighing them down, Uke grapes ; but others hang 

 separately, as in the case of the peach. Some fruits 

 are contained in a matrix, for instance pomegranates; 

 some hang down from a stalk, for instance pears, 

 others hang in bunches, for instance grapes and 

 dates, and others hang from a stalk and form bunches 

 as well, for instance ivy-berries and elder-berries. 

 Others are attached to a branch, Hke the berry on the 

 laurel, while certain kinds hang in both ways, for 

 instance olives, for they have both short stalks and 

 long ones. Some consist of capsules, for instance 

 the pomegranate, the medlar and the lotus in 

 Egypt and on the Euphrates. Then again fruits 

 have a variety of attractions to recommend them. 

 Dates please us by their flesh, but the dates of the 

 Thebaid by their hard skin ; grapes and nut-dates by 

 their juice, pears and apples by their firm flesh, 

 mulberries by their substance, nuts by their solid 

 interior, certain fruits in Egypt by their pips, Carian 

 figs by their skin : this is removed from green figs as 

 refuse, but in dried figs it is very agreeable. In the 

 case of the papyrus, the fennel-giant and the wiiite 

 thorn the stalk itself is the fruit, as are the stalks of 

 the fig-tree, and in the shrub class the caper with its 

 stalk ; but in the carob the only part that is eaten is 

 the wood — while its seed has a property that must 



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