320 
plint's natueal histoey. 
[Book XY. 
instance ! In the flesh of the mulberry there is a juice of a 
yinous flavour, and the fruit assumes three difl'erent colours, 
being at first white, then red, and ripe when black. The 
mulberry blossoms one of the very last,^^ and yet is among 
the first to ripen : the juice of the fruit, when ripe, will stain 
the hands, but that of the unripe fruit will remove the marks. 
It is in this tree that human ingenuity has effected the least 
improvement^^ of all ; there are no varieties here, no modifica- 
tions effected by grafting, nor, in fact, any other improvement 
except that the size of the fruit, by careful management, has 
been increased. At Eome, there is a distinction made between 
the mulberries of Ostia and those of Tusculum. A variety 
grows also on brambles, but the flesh of the fruit is of a very 
different nature. 
CHAP. 28. — THE feiht oe the aebijtus. 
The flesh of the ground-strawberry^^ is very different to 
that of the arbute-tree,^^ which is of a kindred kind : indeed, 
this is the only instance in which we find a similar fruit grow- 
ing upon a tree and on the ground. The tree is tufted and 
bushy ; the fruit takes a year to ripen, the blossoms of the 
young fruit flowering while that of the preceding year is 
arriving at maturity. Whether it is the male tree or the 
female that is unproductive, authors are not generally agreed. 
This is a fruit held in no esteem, in proof of which it has 
words to denote the difference between acinus and " bacca." The lat- 
ter is properly the " berry the grape being the type of the " acinus." 
^9 See B. xvi. c. 41. The mulberry is the Morus nigra of modern 
naturalists. It is generally thought that this was the only variety known 
to the ancients ; but Fee queries, from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, 
which represents the mulberry as changing from white to blood colour, 
that the white mulberry was not unknown to them ; but through some 
cause, now unknown, was gradually lost sight of. 
This is still the case with the mulberry. 
61 See B. xvi. c. 71, andB. xxiv. c. 73. He alludes to the blackberry. 
62 The common strawberry, the Fragaria vesca of Linnaeus. See B. xxi. 
c. 50. A native of the Alps and the forests of Gaul, it was unknown to 
the Greeks. 
63 The Arbutus unedo of Linnseus. It is one of the ericaceous trees, 
and its fruit bears a considerable resemblance to the strawberry — otherwise 
there is not the slightest affinity between them. The taste of the arbute 
is poor indeed, compared to that of the strawberry. 
