Cl-iap. 24.] 
FOUE TARIETIES OF THE ASH. 
365 
CHAP. 24. (13.) TliEES THE WOOD OF WHICH IS HIGHLY VALTIED. 
FOTJK VARIETIES OF THE ASH. 
It is for the sake of their timber that I^atnre has created the 
other trees, and more particularly the ash/^ which yields it in 
greater abundance. This is a tall, tapering tree, with a 
feather-like leaf : it has been greatly ennobled by the enco- 
miums of Homer, and the fact that it formed the spear of 
Achilles : the wood of it is employed for numerous purposes. 
The ash which grows upon Mount Ida, in Troas, is so ex- 
tremely like the cedar, that, when the bark is removed, it 
will deceive a purchaser. 
The Greeks have distinguished two varieties of this tree, 
the one long and without knots, the other short, with a harder 
wood, of a darker colour, and a leaf like that of the laurel. 
In Macedonia they give the name of " bumelia'''''^ to an ash 
of remarkably large size, with a wood of extreme flexibility. 
Some authors have divided this tree into several varieties, ac- 
cording to the localities which it inhabits, and say that the 
ash of the plains has a spotted wood, while that of the moun- 
tain ash is more compact. Some Greek writers have stated 
that the leaf of the ash is poisonous to beasts of burden, but 
harmless to all the animals that ruminate."^^ The leaves of 
this tree in Italy, however, are not injurious to beasts of bur- 
den even ; so far from it, in fact, that nothing has been found 
to act as so good a specific for the bites of serpents'''* as to drink 
the juice extracted from the leaves, and to apply them to the 
wounds. So great, too, are the virtues of this tree, that no 
serpent will ever lie in the shadow thrown by it, either in the 
He does not speak in this place of the "ornns" or mountain ash 
nor, as Fee observes, does he mention the use of the bark of the ash as a 
febrifuge, or of its leaves as a purgative. This ash is the Fraxinus ex- 
celsior of Decandolles. 69 xxiv. 277. 
. '^^ Pliny makes a mistake here, in copying from Theophrastus, who says 
that it is the yew that bears so strong a resemblance to the cedar. 
Or " buU's-ash.^' This variety does not seem to have been identified. 
This statement results from his misinterpretation of the language of 
Theophrastus, who is really speaking of the yew, which Pliny mistakes 
for the ash. 
''^ Miller asserts that, if given to cows, this leaf will impart a bad flavour 
to the milk ; a statement which, Fee says, is quite incorrect. 
"^^ A merely fanciful notion, without apparently the slightest foundation : 
the same, too, may be said of the alleged antipathy of the serpent to the 
beech-tree, which is neither venomous nor odoriferous. 
