110 
pltny's natural histoet. 
[Book XIL 
the bulwark which the tree thus throws around ; a most 
graceful sight, whether we stand beneath and look upwards, | 
or whether we view its arcaded foliage from a distance. The 
higher branches, however, shoot upwards to a very consider- 
able height, and, by their number, form quite a grove, spring- 
ing aloft from the vast trunk of the parent tree, which 
overspreads, very frequently, a space of sixty paces in extent, 
while the shade that is thrown by it will cover as much as ! 
a couple of stadia. The broad leaves of the tree have just the I 
shape of an Amazonian buckler; and hence it is that the 
fruit, from being quite covered by the leaves, is greatly impeded 
in its growth. The fruit, indeed, of this tree is but scanty, 
and never exceeds a bean in size ; being ripened, however, by 
the rays of the sun, as these penetrate the leaves, the figs are 
remarkable for their singular lusciousness, and are quite worthy 
of the marvellous tree by which they are produced. These 
fig-trees are found, more particularly, in the vicinity of the ! 
river Acesines.'^^ 
CHAP. 12. (6.) — THE pala: the ekijit called aeiena. 
There is another tree in India, of still larger size, and I 
even more remarkable for the size and sweetness of its fruit, j 
upon which the sages"^^ of India live. The leaf of this tree 
resembles, in shape, the wing of a bird, being three cubits in 
length, and two in breadth. It puts forth its fruit from the [j 
bark, a fruit remarkable for the sweetness of its juice, a single ij 
one containing sufficient to satisfy four persons. The name of 
this tree is *^pala," and of the fruit, '^ariena." They are found in 
the greatest abundance in the country of the Sydraci,*" a terri- 
tory which forms the extreme limit of the expedition of Alex- 
ander. 
There is another^^ tree, also, very similar to this, but bearing 
a still sweeter fruit, though very apt to cause derangement of 
39 See B. vi. c. 23. 
Sprengel and Bauhin are of opinion that the banana is the tree meant || 
here; Dodonaeus thinks that it is the pomegranate. Thevet says that the i 
pala is the paquovera of India, the fruit of which is called pacona. The 
account is borrowed from Theophrastus. 
^1 The Gymnosophists, or Brahmins. 
^ Called Syndraci in B. vi. c. 25, 
^3 It is not improbable that the Tamarindus Indica of Linnseus is the 
tree here alluded to : though M. Fee combats that opinion. 
