BOOK XVI. XIII. 33-xiv. 35 



acorn-bearing tree the one called the aegilops alone 

 carries strips of dry cloth <* covered with white mossy 

 tufts; this substance not only grows on the bark 

 but hangs down from the branches in streamers 

 eighteen inches long, and it has a strong scent, as we xii.iog. 

 said when deaUng with perfumes. 



The cork is a very small tree, and its acorns are Cork-tree. 

 very bad in quaUty and few in number ; its only 

 useful product is its bark, which is extremely thick 

 and which when cut grows again ; when flattened 

 out it has been known to form a sheet as big as 10 feet 

 square. This bark is used chiefly for ships' anchor 

 drag-ropes and fishermen's ^ drag-nets and for the 

 bungs of casks, and also to make soles for women's 

 winter shoes. Consequently the Greek name for 

 the tree is ' bark-tree,' which is not inappropriate.'^ 

 Some people also call it the female holm-oak, and in 

 places where the holm-oak does not grow, for instance 

 in the districts of Ehs and Sparta, use cork-tree 

 timber instead of holm-oak, especially for wain- 

 wright's carpentry. It does not grow all over Italy 

 or anywhere in Gaul. 



XIV. Also in the case of the beech, the hme, the Barkofother 

 fir and the pitch-pine the bark is extensively used by 

 country people. They employ it for making panniers 

 and baskets, and larger flat receptacles used for 

 carrying corn at harvest-time and grapes at the vint- 

 age, and the roof-eaves of cottages. A scout wites 

 reports to send to his officers by cutting letters on 

 fresh bark from the sap ; <^ and also beech bark is 

 used for ritual purposes in certain rehgious rites, 

 but the tree from which it is stripped does not survive. 



the sap the incifions closcd iip, but opened again later on 

 when the sap dried, so that the writing became legible. 



411 



