296 
pliisy's natueal histokt. 
[Book XV. 
may be mentioned, as being the fellow-countryman of the 
Damascene : it has of late been introduced into Eome, and 
has been grown engrafted upon the sorb. 
CHAP. 18. THE PEACH. 
The name of Persica," or " Persian apple," given to this 
fruit, fully proves that it is an exotic in both Greece as well 
as Asia,^* and that it was first introduced from Persis. As to 
the wild plum, it is a well-known fact that it will grow any- 
where ; and I am, therefore, the more surprised that no men- 
tion has been made of it by Cato, more particularly as he has 
pointed out the method of preserving several of the wild 
fi?uits as well. As to the peach-tree, it has been only intro- 
duced of late years, and with considerable difficulty ; so much 
so, that it is perfectly barren in the Isle of Ehodes, the first 
resting-place^^ that it found after leaving Egypt. 
It is quite untrue that the peach which grows in Persia is 
poisonous, and produces dreadful tortures, or that the kings 
of that country, from motives of revenge, had it transplanted 
in Egypt, where, through the nature of the soil, it lost all its 
evil properties — for we find that it is of the persea"^^ that 
the more careful writers have stated all this,^^ a totally different 
tree, the fruit of which resembles the red myxa, and, indeed, 
cannot be successfully cultivated anywhere but in the East. 
The learned have also maintained that it was not introduced 
from Persis into Egypt with the view of inflicting punishment, 
but say that it was planted at Memphis by Perseus ; for 
which reason it was that Alexander gave orders that the vic- 
tors should be crowned with it in the games which he insti- 
tuted there in honour of his*^ ancestor : indeed, this tree has 
always leaves and fruit upon it, growing immediately upon the 
others. It must be quite evident to every one that all our 
plums have been introduced since the time of Cato.^^ 
I. e. Asia Minor. Hospitium. • 
5C See B. xiii. c. 17. The Balanites ^gyptiaca of Delille. 
It was this probably, and not the peach-tree, that would not bear 
fruit in the isle of Ehodes. 
^ Perseus. 
59 Fee remarks that the wild plum, the Prunus silvestris or insititia of 
Linnaeus, was to be found in Italy before the days of Cato. 
