i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 13 



Greeks on account of the mild or sweet charac- 

 ter of the acorn, as contradistinguished from the 

 bitterness of other varieties, just as we speak of 

 the sweet Chesnut to distinguish the fruit of the 

 Spanish from that of the Horse Chesnut. 



Pliny states, that although a small tree, it bears 

 the largest acorn of any of the Oak tribe, and 

 also yields the best gall-nuts. 



Sprengel seems to regard it as the Quercus cerris, 

 but if so, it must be the tree which Decandolle j 

 distinguishes as Q. toza, and which, as he suggests, 

 may be a dwarf variety of Cerris, a tree too lofty 

 in its ordinary character to agree with the Hemeris 

 of Pliny. 



The Ilex of that author and the TIpivo? of 

 Theophrastus, are evidently our Quercus ilex, or 

 Holm Oak. 



Pliny enumerates two varieties of this evergreen 

 tree, but the one with a leaf not unlike the Olive, 

 called smilax by the Greeks, and aquifolia by the 

 Latins, is not an Oak at all, but probably our com- 

 mon Holly, the Ilex aquifolium of modern botanists, 

 belonging to the family of Rhamnece. This plant, 

 however, only bears a berry, and has no fruit re- 

 sembling the Oak, a circumstance which may throw 

 a doubt upon its identification, and lead us to be- 

 lieve that Pliny must have intended some particular 

 kind of evergreen Oak. 



Under the term Ilex, Pliny, however, confounds 

 with the Holm that species of evergreen Oak 



J Fl. Fr. Suppl. 



