Chap. 11.] 
SIX YAEIETIES OF THE PEACH. 
293 
from the island of Crete. These fruit bend the branches with 
their weight, and so tend to impede the growth of the parent 
tree. The varieties are numerous. The chrysomelum is 
marked with indentations down it, and has a colour inclining 
to gold ; the one that is known as the Italian'' quince, is of a 
paler complexion, and has a most exquisite smell : the quinces 
of J^Teapolis, too, are held in high esteem. The smaller varie- 
ties of the quince which are known as the struthea,"^^ have 
a more pungent smell, but ripen later than the others ; that 
called the musteum,''^^ ripens the soonest of all. The coto- 
neum engrafted ^"^ on the strutheum, has produced a peculiar 
variety, known as the Mulvianum,'' the only one of them 
all that is eaten raw.^^ At the present day all these varieties 
are kept shut up in the antechambers of great men,^^ where they 
receive the visits of their courtiers ; they are hung, too, upon 
the statues that pass the night with us in our chambers. 
There is a small wild^^ quince also, the smell of which, next 
to that of the strutheum, is the most powerful ; it grows in 
the hedges. 
CHAP. 11. SIX YAEIETIES OF THE PEACH. 
Under the head of apples, we include a variety of fruits, 
although of an entirely different nature, such as the Persian 
apple, for instance, and the pomegranate, of which, when 
speaking of the tree, we have already enumerated^* nine va- 
rieties. The pomegranate has a seed within, enclosed in a 
24 Or "golden apple.'* The quince was sacred to Venus, and was an 
emblem of love. 
25 Apparently meaning the " sparrow quince." Dioscorides, Galen, and 
Athenseus, however, say that it was a large variety. Qy. if in such case, 
it might not mean the ostrich quince ? 
26 " Early ripener." 
Quinces are not grafted on quinces at the present day, but the pear is. 
Fee suggests that this is a kind of pear. 
29 Probably on account of the fragrance of their scent. 
3^ We learn from other sources that the bed-chambers were frequently 
ornamented with statues of the divinities. 
The Mala cotonea silvestris of Bauhin ; the Cydonia vulgaris of mo- 
dem botanists, 
22 Mala." The term " malum," somewhat similar to pome " with 
us, was applied to a number of different fruits : the orange, the citron, 
the pomegranate, the apricot, and others. 
33 Or peach. 34 ggg B. xiii. c. 34. 
