46 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. 



the cr(j)i>SaiJLvo? aypia of Theophrastus, which that 

 writer pronounces as useless for timber ; but for the 

 Acer of Virgil we must surely look to some other 

 variety, more conspicuous for stature, strength, and 

 durability, such as the Sycamore, 



Indeed the word o-fyevSafjivos is said to be de- 

 rived from crfyevftovri , the bezel of a ring, or the 

 part encompassing the stone, which required to be 

 hard and compact ; and at any rate crfyevftaiJiVLvos 

 is used adjectively in Aristophanes p for tough, or 

 as we should say, heart of oak. 



Now Theophrastus q mentions another variety 

 which he calls Zvyia, the wood of which, he says, 

 is yellow, and crisp, or twisted in its fibre (ouAoz/), 

 and he adds that the people of Stagira recognised 

 a third, affording a white and tough (evivov) timber, 

 which is called KXivorpoyov, a term applied to it on 

 account of its fitness for making the rollers upon 

 which bedsteads turn r . 



Pliny says, that the Greeks distinguish the Acer 

 of the plains, which they call glinon, and the wood 

 of which is white and not wavy, from that of the 

 mountains, the wood of which is harder and more 

 variegated. The distinction between male and 

 female trees, which runs through all the classical 

 waiters, though in a different sense from that in 

 which we employ it, is here noticed, and the former 

 is said to be best adapted for ornamental purposes. 



But besides these two, there is a third kind, 



" Ach. 181. i H. PI. iii. 10. 



' See Stapel, Notes in Theoph. 



