372 
Pliny's natukal histoet. 
[Book XYI. 
oP all for tlie nuptial ceremony; from the circumstance, as 
Massurius assures us, that the shepherds, on the occasion of 
the rape of the Sabine women, made their torches of the wood 
of this tree : at the present day, however, the woods of the 
yoke -elm and the hazel are more generally employed for this 
purpose. 
CHAP. 31. TEEES WHICH GEOW ON A DEY SOIL: THOSE WHICH 
AEE POUND IN WET LOCALITIES I THOSE WHICH AEE POUND IN 
BOTH INDIPPEEENTLY. 
The cypress, the walnut, the chesnut, and the laburnum,'^ 
are averse to water. This last tree is also a native of the 
Alps, and far from generally known : the wood is hard and 
white, and the flowers, which are a cubit-^ in length, no bee 
will ever touch. The shrub, too, known as Jupiter's beard,^^ 
manifests an equal dislike to water : it is often clipped, and is 
employed in ornamental gardening, being of a round, bushy 
form, with a silvery leaf The willow, the alder, the poplar,''^* 
the siler,^^ and the privet, so extensively employed for making 
tallies,^^ will only grow in damp, watery places ; which is the^ 
bride a torch of white thorn. This thorn was, not improbably, the " Cra- 
tcegus oxyacantha" of Linnaeus, which bears a white flower. See B. xxiv. 
c. 66. 
2^ The Cytisus laburnum of Linnseus, also known as ^' false ebony," stUI 
a native of the Alps. 
25 But blackish in the centre; whence its name of false ebony. 
2^ Meaning the clusters of the flowers. 
2'? The Anthyllis barba Jovis of modern botanists. The leaves have 
upon them a silvery down, whence the name " argyrophylla," given to it 
by Msench. 
28 But in c. 30., he says that the poplar grows on hiUy or mountainous 
declivities. 
29 This tree has not been satisfactorily identified ; but Fee is of opinion 
that it is probably a variety of the willow, the Salix vitellina of Linneeus. 
Sprengel thinks that it is the Salix capraea. 
The Ligustrum vulgare of Linnaeus. It has black fruit and a white 
flower, and is rendered famous by the lines of Virgil — Eel. ii. 17 : 
" 0 formose puer, nimium ne crede colori ; 
Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur." 
It is evidently this juxtaposition that has prompted Pliny to mention the 
vaccinium in the succeeding passage. In B. xii. c. 51, and B. xxiv. c. 45, 
Pliny seems inclined to confound this shrub with the Cyprus, the Lawsonia 
inermis of Linnaaus, the Henna of the east, a totally different plant. 
^1 Wooden tallies used by public officers in keeping their accounts. They i 
were employed till the middle ages. 
