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

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

Chapter 277: CHAP. 10. (11.)—THE QUINCE. FOUR KINDS OF CYDONIA, AND FOUR VARIETIES OF THE STRUTHEA.
By the Elder Pliny
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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. 10. (11.)—THE QUINCE. FOUR KINDS OF CYDONIA, AND FOUR VARIETIES OF THE STRUTHEA.

Next in size after these are the fruit called by us “cotonea,”1752 by the Greeks “Cydonia,”1753 and first introduced from the island of Crete. These fruit bend the branches with their weight, and so tend to impede the growth of the parent tree. The varieties are numerous. The chrysomelum1754 is marked with indentations down it, and has a colour inclining to gold; the one that is known as the “Italian” quince, is of a paler complexion, and has a most exquisite smell: the quinces of Neapolis, too, are held in high esteem. The smaller varieties of the quince which are known as the “struthea,”1755 have a more pungent smell, but ripen later than the others; that called the “musteum,”1756 ripens the soonest of all. The cotoneum engrafted1757 on the strutheum, has produced a peculiar variety, known as the “Mulvianum,” the only one of them all that is eaten raw.1758 At the present day all these varieties are kept shut up in the antechambers of great men,1759 where they receive the visits of their courtiers; they are hung, too, upon the statues1760 that pass the night with us in our chambers.

There is a small wild1761 quince also, the smell of which, next to that of the strutheum, is the most powerful; it grows in the hedges.