Chap. 19.] 
THE LARCH. 
359 
the roots are once burnt, will not throw out fresh shoots, 
which the pitch- tree will do, as was found to be the case in the 
island of Lesbos, after the Pyrrhaean groye had been burnt 
there. 
In the same species too, the variety of sex^'^ is found to con- 
stitute a considerable difference : the male is the shorter tree, 
and has a harder wood ; while the female is taller, and bears a 
leaf more unctuous to the feel, smooth and free from all 
rigidity. The wood of the male tree is hard and awry, and 
consequently not so well suited for carpenters' work ; while 
that of the female is softer, as may be very easily perceived on 
the application of the axe, a test, in fact, which, in every 
variety, immediately shows us which trees are males ; the axe 
in such case meeting with a greater resistance, falling with 
a louder noise, and being withdrawn from the wood with con- 
siderably greater difficulty : the wood of the male tree is more 
parched too, and the root is of a blacker hue. In the vicinity of 
Mount Ida, in Troas, the circumstance whether the tree grows 
in the mountain districts or on the sea- shore, makes another 
considerable difference. In Macedonia and Arcadia, and in the 
neighbourhood of Elis, the names of the several varieties have 
been totally altered, and it has not been agreed by authors 
which name ought to be given to each : we have, therefore, 
contented ourselves with employing the Eoman denominations 
solely. 
The fir is the largest of them all, the female being the taller 
of the two ; the wood, too, is softer and more easily worked. 
This tree is of a rounder form than the others, and its leaves 
are closely packed and feathered, so as not to admit of the 
passage of rain ; the appearance, too, of the tree is altogether 
more cheerfuL Prom the branches of these different varieties, 
with the sole exception of the larch,^® there hang numbers of 
scaly nuts of compact shape, like so many catkins. The nuts 
found upon the male fir have a kernel in the fore-part, which is 
Pliny IS in error here, there being no distinction of sex in the coni- 
ferous trees. All that he relates relative to the differences between tlie 
male and female pine is consequently false. He has, however, in this in- 
stance, only perpetuated an erroneous opinion of Theophrastus. 
28 This is an erroneous statement. The larch has its cone, as well as 
the rest. It is possible, however, that its small size may have caused it to 
be overlooked by Pliny. 
