the Quercus and Fagus of the Ancients. 1 1 



he invariably speaks of as an Oak. Of the oaks, he informs us that the Ma- 

 cedonians recognise four sorts ; whilst the district of Ida, still remarkable for 

 the beauty, variety, and value of its forest trees *, presents us with five distinct 

 species. These he enumerates under the names of Hemeris, iEgilops, Platy- 

 phyllos (Latifolia), Phegos, and lastly the Haliphlceos, by some called Euphlceos. 

 The scholiast upon a passage in Theocritus, which will be presently under our 

 consideration, furnishes another (? the only other) authority for the names of 

 the Greek oaks. The sorts of oaks, he says, are five, the Phegos, Kimeris, 

 Etymodrus, Alyphlos, and Amylos ; the first and third of this list accord with 

 the catalogue of Theophrastus ; the other three, evidently corrupt and unin- 

 telligible as they stand, are probably intended for the ^Hemeris, the Haliphlceos, 

 and the iEsculus, or perhaps iEgilops. Before proceeding to examine the 

 description left by Theophrastus of these various oaks, whose descendants, oc- 

 cupying the same regions, and bearing the same aspect, must meet the eye of 

 modern travellers, it will be proper to observe that our many obligations to 

 Pliny cannot exempt him from the blame of having thrown immense confusion 

 upon the whole race of oaks : his account of the different species is extracted, 

 and sometimes f verbally translated, from Theophrastus ; but he brings for- 

 ward all the Greek and all the Latin names he can collect, and would make 

 it appear that each name represented a distinct tree. Thus we have the Ro- 

 bur, Quercus, Esculus, Cerris, Ilex, Suber, Hemeris, iEgilops, Latifolia, and 

 Haliphlceos. By discarding more than half of these, which may be done with 

 safety, we reduce the list, so as to agree with the number of the more accurate 

 Theophrastus. Roburmay be rejected as meaning simply the timber, or solid 

 wood of any tree, and is applied by Virgil (Geor., ii. 64.) as readily to the 

 myrtle as to the oak. Quercus, like the Greek Apvg, is nothing more than 

 the generic name for oaks in general. Some lexicographers have given Es- 

 culus as the Latin for iEgilops, and not without reason ; the Cerris is the 

 same as the Hemeris ; the Ilex and Suber, not accounted oaks by Theophras- 

 tus (perhaps from the circumstance of their not being deciduous), are the 

 Prinos and Phellos of the Greeks ; names now most unwarrantably usurped 

 by the broad chestnut-leaved oak, and the willow-leaved oak, from North 

 America. Pliny's list may be thus reduced to the last four, the Hemeris, 

 iEgilops, Latifolia (or Platyphyllos), and Haliphlceos ; to which if we add the 

 Phegos, which he curiously enough, and apparently from being at a loss for a 

 term, translates by the word Quercus (N.H., xvi. 8.), we recover the catalogue 

 of Theophrastus in its genuine form, consisting of five distinct species. 



1. The Hemeris, according to the Greek naturalist, was neither straight- 

 growing, nor tall, but round-headed and branching, remarkable for the ex- 

 cellence of its timber, although in this respect unequal to the Phegos. Its 

 fruit ranks next to that of the Phegos in sweetness. 



2. The iEgilops is stated to be the most straight-growing and loftiest, pos- 

 sessing a smooth timber, and, for length, the strongest. In cultivated ground it 

 is said to grow but sparingly. 



3. The Platyphyllos (Latifolia) is described as second in straight growth and 

 height, but, with the exception of the Haliphlceos, the worst as a building 

 material, and, like that tree, unfit for carbonisation, and subject to the attacks 

 of the worm. Pausanias especially mentions the Platyphyllos as abundant in 

 Arcadia. 



4. The Haliphlceos has a very thick bark, and a soft trunk, which, if of any 

 size, is sure to be hollow. For building purposes it is worthless, being subject 



I heard the pine trees murmur, I saw the beech trees bend, 

 Where Klephtai mourn'd in anguish their captain and their friend." 



Translation by Mr. Sheridan. 



* See Olivier's Travels, and P. B. Webb, DelV Agro Troiano. 

 f See 2V. H., xvi. 8., the passage beginning " In ipsis vero arboribus," and 

 ending " carbone sacrificatur." 



