BOOK XVI. Li. 119-L111. 122 



and bud earlier, and are in advance of the season 

 generally ; and in general all attention adds fertility, 

 while fertihty advances old age, because every 

 weakness is rendered more subject to the wcather. 



LII. Many trees grow several products, as we said othrr 

 in the case of acorn-bearing trees. Among them, the besfdefruit. 

 laurel bears its own grapes," and especially the barren §§ 2g 11. 

 laurel, which produces notliing else, and which is 

 consequently thought by some people to be the 

 male tree. Hazels also bear catkins of a hard, com- 

 pact shape, which are of no use for any purpose ; 

 but the holm-oak ^ produces the greatest number 

 of things, for it grows both its own seed and the grain 

 called crataegus,^ and mistletoe grows on the north 

 side of the tree and hyphear on the south side — we 

 shall say more about these a Uttle later — and oc- § ^^°- 

 casionally the trees have all four of these things 

 together. 



LIIl. Some trees are of simple shape, having one ^"52***"=^ 

 stem rising from the root and a numbcr of branches, trees. 

 as the oUve, fig and vine ; some belong to the bushy 

 class, as the Christ's thorn and the myrtle, and 

 also the hazel — in fact this bears better and more 

 abundant nuts when it spreads out into many 

 branches. Some trees have no branches at all, for 

 instance the box of the cultivated variety and the 

 foreign lotus. Some trees are forked, and even 

 branch out into five parts, some divide the trunk 

 but have no branches, as is the case with the elder, 

 and some are undivided and have branches, hke the 

 pitch-pines. Some have their branches in a regular 

 order, for instance the pitch-pine, the fir, with 

 others their arrangement is irregular, as with the oak, 

 apple and pear. Also in the case of the fir the 



467 



