54 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. 



Ulmus, has its leaves lying closer together, and 

 springing in greater numbers from a single stalk. 

 This may perhaps be Ulmus campestris, our common 

 English Elm. 



The fourth variety he calls the Wild Elm, but 

 does not describe it. It affords a curious illustration 

 of the looseness of Pliny's classification, that he 

 places the Elm intermediate between forest and fruit 

 trees, because although it belongs to the former 

 class by reason of its timber, it approaches to the 

 latter in supporting more commonly than any other 

 tree the branches and fruit of the Vine. 



Celtis australis, or Nettle-tree, a native of the 

 Levant, is noticed by Dioscorides under the name 

 of Acoros*. 



Pliny ! speaks of it as a tree naturalized in Italy, 

 and the description he gives of the fruit, which, 

 he says, is about the size of a bean, its colour that 

 of saffron, may refer to the berries of the Celtis, 

 which are represented as sweet and wholesome in 

 the south of Europe, and indeed in modern Greek, 

 according to Sibthorp, are called honey-berries ; 

 though it must be confessed the rest of his account 

 applies better to the true Lotus of Egypt, which he 

 describes afterwards with tolerable exactness. 



He seems to have been misled by the name Lotus, 

 which had been applied to the tree, and to have 

 transferred to it the description which he had re- 

 ceived of the plant so designated in Egypt. 



1 Lib. xiii. c. 32. 



