Trees, Shrubs, and Plants of Virgil 



nuts, and also what we call bush fruits and others, 

 such as plums, for which there was no divisional 

 name. Virgil uses ' malus ' of three trees, two of them 

 belonging to the natural order of Rosaceae and the 

 third to Aurantiaceae, and possibly of a fourth. 



A. Apple: Pyrus malus. 



' mutatam . . . insta mala | ferre pyrum ' {Ge. ii. 34). 

 1 steriles platani malos gessere valentes ' (ib. 70). 



These passages probably refer to the apple. In 

 Italy it seems to bewray a foreign origin by its 

 dislike for the hot summers. It could be grafted 

 on the pear but not on the plane, to which it is not 

 akin. The earliest apple was musteum or melimelum, 

 our summering, the best keeper the amerine. 



B. Quince : Pyrus cydonia. 



'malo me Galatea petit' (Ec. iii. 64). 

 1 aurea mala ' (ib. 71). 



The former of these passages may refer to the 

 apple, but, as the quince was sacred to Venus and 

 the thrown apple is a challenge to love, it may well 

 be the quince. Virgil took his phrase here from 

 Theocritus. At Athens, as is pretty clear from 

 Aristophanes, this method of making love was con- 

 fined to Doll Tearsheet and her kind. A modern 

 quince of the pear-shaped type would be a clumsy 

 pellet in a girl's hand, but the fruit may well have 

 grown larger under cultivation. The ancient authori- 

 ties mention several varieties, and with us one is 

 occasionally found which has an apple-shaped fruit. 



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