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

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

Chapter 296: CHAP. 29.—THE RELATIVE NATURES OF BERRY FRUITS.
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. 29.—THE RELATIVE NATURES OF BERRY FRUITS.

There is a great difference also among the various acinus fruits. First of all, among the grapes, we find considerable difference in respect to their firmness, the thinness or thickness of the skin, and the stone inside the fruit, which in some varieties is remarkably small, and in others even double in number: these last producing but very little juice. Very different, again, are the berries of the ivy1997 and the elder;1998 as also those in the pomegranate,1999 these being the only ones that are of an angular shape. These last, also, have not a membrane for each individual grain, but one to cover them all in common, and of a pale colour. All these fruits consist, too, of juice and flesh, and those more particularly which have but small seeds inside.

There are great varieties, too, among the berry2000 fruits; the berry of the olive being quite different from that of the laurel, the berry of the lotus2001 from that of the cornel, and that of the myrtle from the berry of the lentisk. The berry, however, of the aquifolium2002 and the thorn2003 is quite destitute of juice.

The cherry2004 occupies a middle place between the berry and the acinus fruit: it is white at first, which is the case also with nearly all the berries. From white, some of the berries pass to green, the olive and the laurel, for instance; while in the mulberry, the cherry, and the cornel, the change is to red; and then in some to black, as with the mulberry, the cherry, and the olive, for instance.