BOOK XVI. .XXV. 65 -XXVI. 67 



peeled off cannot be bent ; nor does the male trce 

 produce seed or a flower as the feniale does, and the 

 female is thicker in the trunk and its wood is white 

 and of superior quality. A remarkable fact in 

 regard to the lime is that no animal will touch its 

 fruit, whereas the juice of the leaves and bark has a 

 sweet taste. Between the bark and the wood there 

 are thin coats made by a number of layers of skin, 

 made from which are the ropes called Ume-w4thies,<* 

 and the thinnest part of them provided lime- 

 chaplets, famous for the ribbons of wreaths of honour 

 in old times. Lime-wood is worm-proof, and it 

 makes useful timber although the tree is of extremely 

 moderate height. 



XXVI. The maple, which is of about the same size Themapie: 

 as the lime, is second only to the citrus in its elegance al^triluuon. 

 as a material for cabinet-making and in the finish 

 it allows of. It is of several kinds : the white 

 maple, an exceptionally Hght-coloured wood, is 

 called Gallic maple, and grows in Italy north of the 

 Po, and on the other side of the Alps ; the second 

 kind has blotches running in wavy lines, and in its 

 hner variety has received the name ^ of ' peacock 

 maple ' from its resemblance to a peacock's tail, 

 the finest sorts growing in Istria and Tyrol ; and an 

 inferior variety is called the thick-veined maple. 

 The Greeks distinguish the varieties by locaUty, 

 saying that the maple of the plains is light-coloured 

 and not wavy — this kind they call glinon — but the 

 mountain maple has a rather wavy grain and is 

 harder, the wood of the male tree being still wavier 

 and suitable for making more elegant articles ; while 

 a third kind is the hornbeam, a reddish wood that 

 splits easily, with a rough bark of a pale colour. 



431 



