526 
plint's natural history. 
[Book XVII. 
upon as possessed of the sense of smell, and affected by odours 
in a singular degree ; hence, when it is near a noxious exhala- 
tion, it will turn away and withdraw from it. It was from 
his observation of this fact that Androcydes borrowed the 
radish as his antidote for drunkenness, recommending it to 
be eaten on such occasions. The vine, too, abhors all cole- 
worts and garden herbs, and the hazeP^ as well ; indeed it will 
become weak and ailing if they are not removed to a distance 
from it. Mtre, alum, warm sea- water, and the shells of beans^^ 
and fitches act as poisons on the vine. 
CHAP. 38. (25.) PRODIGIES CONNECTED WITH TREES. 
Among the maladies which affect the various trees, we may 
find room for portentous prodigies also. For we find some 
trees that have never had a leaf upon them ; a vine and a pome- 
granate bearing fruit adheriDg to the trunk, and not upon 
the shoots or branches ; a vine, too, that bore grapes but had 
no leaves ; and olives that have lost their leaves while the fruit 
remained upon the tree. There are some marvels also connected 
with trees that are owing to accident ; an olive that was com- 
pletely burnt, has been known to revive, and in Boeotia, some 
fig-trees that had been quite eaten away by locusts budded 
afresh.^^ Trees, too, sometimes change their colour, and turn 
frora black to white ; this, however, must not always be looked 
upon as portentous, and more particularly in the case of those 
which are grown from seed; the white poplar, too, often becomes 
black. Some persons are of opinion also that the service-tree, 
if transplanted to a warmer locality, will become barren. Eut 
it is a prodigy, no doubt, when sweet fruits become sour, or 
sour fruits sweet; and when the wild fig becomes changed 
into the cultivated one, or vice versa. It is sadly por ten tons, 
too, when the tree becomes deteriorated by the change, the 
cultivated olive changing into the wild, and the white grape 
or fig becoming black : such was the case, also, when upon the 
arrival of Xerxes there, a plane-tree at Laodicea was trans- 
26 See B. xix. c. 26. 27 yirgil shared this belief: see Georg. ii. 1. 299. 
2S This may be true in some measure as to nitre, alum, and warm sea- 
water ; but not so as to the shells of beans and pigeon-pease, which would 
make an excellent manure for it. 
29 This, as Fee remarks, is not by any means impossible, nor, indeed, 
are any other of the cases mentioned in this paragraph, owing to some 
accidental circumstance. See B. xxix. c. 29. 
31 These stories can, of course, be only regarded as fabulous. 
