DESOEIPTIVE E]vrOMEltA.TI0N OF TEEBS. 81 



wood is superior to any other, and it has the advantage of 

 keeping free from the attacks of insects. — Ed. 



Tlie Maple is an uncommon tree, ttougli a 

 common bush. Its wood is of little value and it 

 is, therefore, rarely suffered to increase. "We sel- 

 dom see it employed in any nobler service than 

 in filling up its part in a hedge, in company with 

 thorns and briars and other ditch trumpery. 

 Yet the ancients held it in great repute. Pliny * 

 speaks as highly of the knobs and excrescences 

 of this tree, called the brusca and mollusca, as 

 Dr. Plot does of those of the Ash.f The veins 

 of these excrescences in the Maple, Pliny tells 

 us, were so variegated that they exceeded the 

 beauty of any other wood, even of the Citron ; 

 though the Citron was in such repute at Rome 

 that Cicero, who was neither rich nor expensive, 

 was tempted to give ten thousand sesterces for 

 a Citron table. The brusca and mollusca, Pliny 

 adds, were rarely of size suflBcient for the larger 

 species of furniture; but in all smaller cabinet 



* See Pliu. Nat. Hist., lib. xvi. cli. 16. 



t See page 55. See also Plin. Nat. Hist., lib. xiii. ch. 15. 



