384 
play's kattjeal history. 
[Book XVI. 
their constellation.^ As for the vine, it blossoms at the summer 
solstice, and the olive begins to do so a little later. All blos- 
soms remain on the trees seven days, and never fall sooner ; 
some, indeed, fall later, but none remain on more than twice 
seven days. The blossoms are always off before the eighth 
day^ of the ides of July, the period of the prevalence of the 
Etesian^ winds. 
CHAP. 43. (26.) — AT WHAT PEEIOB EACH TEEE BEAES PEUIT. 
THE COENEL. 
Upon some trees the fruit does not follow immediately upon 
the fall of the blossom. The cornel* about the summer sol- 
stice puts forth a fruit that is white at first, and after that 
the colour of blood. The female^ of this tree, after autumn, 
bears a sour berry, which no animal will touch ; its wood, 
too, is spongy and quite useless, while, on the other hand, that 
of the male tree is one of the very strongest and hardest^ woods 
known : so great a difference do we find in trees belonging to 
the same species. The terebinth, the maple, and the ash pro- 
duce their seed at harvest-time, while the nut-trees, the apple, 
and the pear, with the exception of the winter or the more 
early kinds, bear fruit in autumn. The glandiferous trees 
bear at a still later period, the setting of the Yergiliae,'^ with 
the exception of the sesculus,^ which bears in the autumn only ; 
while some kinds of the apple and the pear, and the cork-tree, 
bear fruit at the beginning of winter. 
The fir puts forth blossoms of a saffron colour about the 
summer solstice, and the seed is ripe just after the setting of 
the Vergiliae. The pine and the pitch-tree germinate about 
fifteen days before the fir, but their seed is not ripe till after 
the setting of the Yergiliae. 
^ It was supposed in astrology that the stars exercised an effect equally 
upon animal and vegetable life. 
2 25th of July. 3 See B. xviii. c. 68. 
* The Cornus mas of botanists ; probably the Frutex sanguineus men- 
tioned in c. 30. See also B. xv. c. 31. 
5 Probably the Lonicera Alpigena of Linnaeus ; the fruit of which resem- 
bles a cherry, but is of a sour flavour, and produces vomiting. 
6 The wood is so durable, that a tree of this kind in the forest of Mont- 
morency is said to be a thousand years old. 
7 See B. xviii. cc. 59, 60. « See c. 6 of this BooL 
