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The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6) cover

The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6)

Chapter 199: CHAP. 14. (7.)—THE TREES OF EGYPT. THE FIG-TREE OF ALEXANDRIA.
By the Elder Pliny
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Classics of LiteratureHistory - AncientNature/Gardening/AnimalsScience - Biology

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The work assembles systematic observations on animals, insects, and trees, combining natural history with practical notes. It surveys insect forms and habits, including bees, silk‑producing worms, spiders, and parasitic species, and discusses reproduction, classification, diseases, and useful products like honey and silk. It then examines animal anatomy in detail, limb by limb and organ by organ, comparing organs, vital functions, and bodily peculiarities across species. Later sections catalogue trees and exotic plants, describing aromatic gums, spices, frankincense, myrrh, and methods for producing and testing unguents and perfumes, and noting their uses and regions of origin.

CHAP. 14. (7.)—THE TREES OF EGYPT. THE FIG-TREE OF ALEXANDRIA.

Egypt, too, has many trees which are not to be found elsewhere, and the kind of fig more particularly, which for this reason has been called the Egyptian fig.837 In leaf this tree resembles the mulberry-tree, as also in size and general appearance. It bears fruit, not upon branches, but upon the trunk itself: the fig is remarkable for its extreme sweetness, and has no seeds838 in it. This tree is also remarkable for its fruitfulness, which, however, can only be ensured by making incisions839 in the fruit with hooks of iron, for otherwise it will not come to maturity. But when this has been done, it may be gathered within four days, immediately upon which another shoots up in its place. Hence it is that in the year it produces seven abundant crops, and throughout all the summer there is an abundance of milky juice in the fruit. Even if the incisions are not made, the fruit will shoot afresh four times during the summer, the new fruit supplanting the old, and forcing it off before it has ripened. The wood, which is of a very peculiar nature, is reckoned among the most useful known. When cut down it is immediately plunged into standing water, such being the means employed for drying840 it. At first it sinks to the bottom, after which it begins to float, and in a certain length of time the additional moisture sucks it dry, which has the effect of penetrating and soaking all841 other kinds of wood. It is a sign that it is fit for use842 when it begins to float.