40 



THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. 



But the Juniperus thurifera, a native of Spain 

 and Portugal, grows to the height of twenty-five 

 feet and upwards, and the /. excelsa, first discovered 

 in Siberia by Pallas, and now found to be common 

 in Asia Minor, Syria, and the Grecian Archipelago, 

 is still loftier f . 



Is it not probable, that one of these may have 

 been known to the ancients ? Or are we compelled 

 to cut the knot, by alluding to the inaccurate in- 

 formation they possessed, and by supposing some 

 other tree of the Fir tribe to have been employed 

 under the name of Cedrus for many of the purposes 

 above indicated ; just as the early settlers in North 

 America called the Thuja occidentalis by the name 

 of the White Cedar. 



Not but that in the flourishing periods of the 

 Roman Empire the Cedrus Libani and atlantica may 

 have been imported as timber, although not grown 

 in the country. 



The latter, however, would have come to be 

 superseded for purposes of ornament, by another 

 tree found in the same part of Africa, which went 

 by the name of Citrus whether from some fancied 

 resemblance to the wood of the Lemon, does not 

 appear. This is the tree which supplied the ma- 

 terial for those fine tables, so much valued in an- 

 cient Rome, of which Cicero, we read, possessed 

 one estimated at 1,000,000 sestertia, about 9,000, 

 whilst still more fabulous prices are recorded as 

 having been paid for them. The roots were espe- 



f See Grisebach, Flora Rumelica, 1845. 



