Trees, Shrubs, and Plants of Virgil 



this art, and Martial therefore says that sorbs are fit 

 food only for a slave. There were several varieties 

 of the fruit. 



This tree is not native in England, though one 

 tree grows, apparently wild, in Wyre Forest. It 

 must be distinguished from our own wild service- 

 tree, which has smaller berries and undivided leaves. 

 Both are wild in Italy, and the former is cultivated 

 there for its fruit. 



Flower, May and June. 

 Italian name, Sorbo. 



SUBER. 



' silvestri subere ' {Ae. xi. 554). 



' corticibus . . . suta cavatis . . . alvearia ' (Ge. iv. 33). 



'tegmina queis capitum raptus de subere cortex ' (Ae. vii. 742). 



The cork-tree (Quercus suber) is a native of central 

 and southern Italy, and the men with cork helmets 

 are Campanians. Though the word ' cortex ' is not 

 limited to the bark of the cork-tree, we have Colu- 

 mella's word that this was the best material for 

 hives, and doubtless this was what Virgil meant. 

 When he says that bees sometimes establish them- 

 selves ' cavis corticibus,' he uses the word in a wider 

 sense. The farmers who, on the feast of Bacchus, 

 put on masks made of hollow ' cortices,' doubtless 

 used cork when they could get it. Cork was also 

 used as stoppers for wine-jars, tar being smeared 

 over it. Roman ladies, like Trollope's Lady Rosina 

 de Courcey, had cork soles to their winter shoes. 



The tree is evergreen, with slightly toothed leaves, 

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