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PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
called “ Pine-apples,” and the tree was called the Pine-Apple 
Tree. 1 This name was transferred to the rich West Indian 
fruit 2 from its similarity to a fir-cone, and so was lost to the 
fruit of the fir-tree, which had to borrow a new name from the 
Greek; but it was still in use in Shakespeare’s day—• 
“Sweete smelling Firre that frankensence provokes, 
And Pine Apples from whence sweet juice doth come.” 
Chester’s Love's Martyr . 
And Gerard, describing the fruit of the Pine Tree, says : “ This 
Apple is called in . . . Low Dutch, Pyn Appel, and in 
English, Pine-apple, clog, and cones.” We also find “Fyre- 
tree,” which is a true English word, meaning the “ fire-tree ”; 
but I believe that “ Fir ” was originally confined to the timber, 
from its large use for torches, and was not till later years 
applied to the living tree. 
The sweetness of the Pine seeds, joined to the difficulty of 
extracting them, and the length of time necessary for their 
ripening, did not escape the notice of the emblem-writers of 
the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries. With them it was the 
favourite emblem of the happy results of persevering labour. 
Camerarius, a contemporary of Shakespeare and a great 
botanist, gives a pretty plate of a man holding a Fir-cone, with 
this moral: “ Sic ad virtutem et honestatem et laudabiles 
actiones non nisi per labores ac varias difficultates perveniri 
potest, at postea sequuntur suavissimi fructus.” He acknow¬ 
ledges his obligation for this moral to the proverb of Plautus : 
“ Qui e nuce nucleum esse vult, frangat nucem ” (“ Symbol- 
orum,” &c., 1590). 
In Shakespeare’s time a few of the European Conifers were 
grown in England, including the Larch, but only as curiosities. 
The very large number of species which now ornament our 
gardens and Pineta from America and Japan were quite 
1 For many examples see “Catholicon Anglicum,” s. v. Pyne-Tree, with 
note. 
2 The West Indian Pine Apple is described by Gerard as u Ananas, the 
Pinea, or Pine Thistle.” 
