124 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



PT. ir. 



A tap- Such a tree, in the form of its stem and root together, 

 ITouidhaye should rcscmblc two carrots placed head to head, or 



no spurs or 



sweu of two cones with their bases one on the other. It should 



the roots. 



have no spw^s whatever, or swell of the roots ; but, on 

 the contrary, should immediately decrease below the 

 earth. We will say nothing of the mechanical difficulty 

 of boring (with a sponge) through the solid deposits at 

 the depth of 100 ft. from the surface in the longitudinal 

 growth of the root, or of what the sponge, or the o?2e 

 capillary stoma, is to get there in the way of chemical 

 nutriment ; but to enable this monster carrot to increase 

 . laterally at these depths would require a force indeed 

 resistless, — a force equal to that of igneous action, — a 

 force sufficient to cleave the world asunder. In what- 

 ever light we view the idea of a tap-root, except for 

 the seedling, it appears to me so preposterous that I 

 think we may at least throw the onus prohandi on the 



Virgil mentions it as distinct from, the qnercus, and also from 

 the castanea, in the beginning of the second book of the Georgics. 

 .^sculns is probably the horse-chestnut. Was the Daunian and 

 Apulian Asculiim a corruption of eesculum ? It was situated 

 ' Qua violens obstrepit Aufidus, 

 Et qua pauper aquse Daunus agrestium 

 Eegnavit populorum,' - 

 and Horace characterises Daunias 'latis sesculetis.' Does the 

 horse-chestnut prevail in the woods neighbouring on modern 

 Ascoii? Ovid, Met. i. 449, says that before Daphne was turned 

 into a laurel, the victor at the Pythian games Bsculece capiebat 

 frondis honorem. A horse-chestnut bough would be a more 

 conspicuous signal of honour than an oak or a beech bough. 

 According to Theophrastus, quoted by Littleton and Hederic, 

 7r\aTv<^v\XoQ is the Greek equivalent for esculus. 'Broad- 

 leaved ' applies well to the horse-chestnut, but not at all to the 

 oak or beech. 



