BOOK XVI. Lx. 140 Lxi. 143 



scenes or fleets of ships and imitations of real objects 



with its narrow, short, evergreen leaf. There are 



two kinds of cypress : the pyramid, tapering upward ey/!m]f* 



in a spiral, which is also called the female cypress, and 



the male cypress which spreads its branches outward 



from itself, and is pruncd and used as a prop for a vine. 



Both the male and the female are allowed to grow 



up so as by having thcir branches lopped ofF to form 



poles or props, which after twelve years' growth sell 



for a denarius apiece, a grove of cypresses being a 



most profitable item in one's plantation account ; 



and people in old days used commonly to call cypress 



nurseries a dowry for a daughter. The native country 



of this tree is the island of Crete, although Cato calls 



it Taranto cypress, no doubt because that place was R-R-CLi. 



where it was first imported. In the island of Ischia 



also, if cut down, it will shoot up again ; but in Crete 



this tree is produced by spontaneous generation 



wherever anybody stirs the earth, and shoots out 



at once, in this case in fact even without any demand 



being made of the soil and of its own accord, and 



especially in the mountains of Ida and those called 



the White Mountains, and in the greatest number on 



the very summits of the peaks that are never free 



from snow, which may well surprise us, as the tree 



does not occur elsewhere except in a warm chmate 



and has a great dishke for snow. 



LXI. Nor is only the nature of the soil important Trees sovm 

 in relation to these trees, or the permanent character "^ " ^' 

 of the weather, but also a certain temporary influence 

 that it exerts : show ers of rain usually bring with them 

 certain seeds, and seeds of a certain kind stream 

 down, occasionally even some of an unknown kind, 

 which happened in the district of Cyrenaica, when 



481 



