16 



HISTORY AND GEOGHAPHY OF TREES. 



PART I. 



Trees are mentioned in the writings of Hesiod and Homer. 

 The garden of Alcinous contained various sorts of fruit trees : 

 and directions are given in Hesiod for lopping the poplar, and 

 other species, for fuel ; and felling the oak, the elm, and other 

 kinds of large trees, for timber. 



The principal trees of the Egyptians^ according to Herodotus, 

 were the palm, the sycamore fig, the lote tree, the olive, and the 

 pomegranate. There are, we know, several other trees which 

 are natives of Egypt; but these were probably thought most 

 worthy of being recorded, as producing edible fruit. The gar- 

 dens of the Persians contained trees ; and those in the garden 

 of the younger Cyrus, at Sardis, were all planted with his own 

 hand, in straight lines: the only mode which, at that early 

 period, when scarcely any but indigenous trees were in use by 

 planters, could convey the expression of art and design. In 

 general, the trees which most attracted the attention of the 

 ancients were those which bore edible fruits, produced spices, 

 had a terebinthine odour, or possessed spreading branches to 

 afford shade. Hence the frequent mention of the palm, the fig, 

 the olive, the cinnamon, the camphor, the cypress, the sycamore 

 fig, and the plane. 



The only positive source of information respecting the trees 

 known to the nations of antiquity, down to the time of the Greeks, 

 is to be found in the works of Theophrastus. The Greeks, accord - 

 ing to this author, paid more attention to flowers than to trees and 

 shrubs : nevertheless, his works contain the names of a number 

 of species of ligneous plants ; and, though modern botanists are 

 not able to apply all these names with certainty to the plants 

 they were intended to designate, yet the following approximation, 

 from Stackhouse's edition of the Historia Plantarum, may suf- 

 fice for the purpose of this work. In this enumeration those 

 marked thus * ai e natives of Britain, 



1. ^anunculdcecE. Clematis orientalis, 1 sh. 



2. CajjparidecE. Capparis spinosa, I sh. 



3. 'M.alvdcecE. i^ibiscus, 1 sh. 



4. 'Tilidcece. Tilia *europas^a, 1 tr. 



5. AurantidcecB. Citrus Medica and Aurantium, 2 tr. 



6. Acermece. A'cer * campestris, 1 tr. 



7. K7itdce(E. JRhta graveolens. 1 sh. 



8. Celast7ineiS. Celastrus, 1 sh. 



9. Khdmnece. i?hamnus * catharticus, ^laternus, Paliurus, 

 and .Spina Christ^', 4 sh. 



10. TerebinthdcecE. Amyvis gileadensis, Pistacia 7erebinthus, 

 and jRhus Coriaria and Cotinus, 1 tr. and 3 sh. 



11. LeguminbscE. Coronilla Securidaca, Ononis antiquorum, 

 and ([Tlex or) Genista lusitanica, 4 sh. 



