Chap. 42.] 
IN WHAT OEDEB TREES BLOSSOM. 
383 
ing of the fruit. Some trees blossom while they are budding, 
and pass rapidly through that period ; but the fruit is slow in 
coming to maturity, as in the vine, for instance. Other trees, 
again, blossom and bud but late, while the fruit comes to 
maturity with great rapidity, the mulberry,^^ for example, 
which is the very last to bud of all the cultivated trees, and 
then only when the cold weather is gone : for this reason 
it has been pronounced the wisest among the trees. Eut in 
this, the germination, when it has once begun, bursts forth all 
over the tree at the very same moment ; so much so, indeed, 
that it is accomplished in a single night, and even with a 
noise that may be audibly heard.^^ 
CHAP. 42. IN WHAT OKDEE THE TEEES BLOSSOM. 
Of the trees which, as we have already stated, bud in win- 
ter at the rising of the Eagle, the almond blossoms the first 
of all, in the month of January^^ namely, while by March the 
fruit is well developed. JN'ext to it in blossoming is the plum^^ 
of Armenia, and then the tuber and the early peach, ^ the first 
two being exotics, and the latter forced by the agency of culti- 
vation. Among the forest trees, the first that blossoms in the 
course of nature is the elder, which has the most pith of any, 
and the male cornel, which has none^''' at all. Among the 
cultivated trees we next have the apple, and immediately after 
— so much so, indeed, that it would almost appear that they 
blossom simultaneously — the pear, the cherry, and the plum. 
'Next to these is the laurel, and then the cypress, and after 
that the pomegranate and the fig : the vine, too, and the olive 
are budding when these last trees are in flower, the period of 
their conception being the rising of the Yergilise,^^ that being 
^0 See B. xviii. c. 67. What Pliny says here is in general true, though 
its germination does not take place with such rapidity as he states. 
91 A mere fable, of course. jn i]^q i^st Chapter. 
93 In Paris, Fee says, the almond does not hlossom till March. If the 
tree should blossom too soon, it is often at the expense of the fruit. 
9^ Probably the apricot. See B. xv. c. 12. 
95 See B. XV. c. 11. See B. xxiv. c. 8. 
9"^ This, of course, is not the fact. As to the succeeding statements, 
they are borrowed mostly from Theophrastus, and are in general correct. 
9« The rising of the sap. 
99 The Pleiades. See B. xviii. cc. 59, 60. 
