WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6) cover

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

Chapter 304: CHAP. 37.—ELEVEN VARIETIES OF THE MYRTLE.
By the Elder Pliny
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

Classics of LiteratureHistory - AncientNature/Gardening/AnimalsScience - Biology

About This Book

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. 37.—ELEVEN VARIETIES OF THE MYRTLE.

Cato2071 makes mention of three varieties of the myrtle, the black, white, and the conjugula, perhaps so called from its reference to conjugal unions, and belonging to the same species as that which grew where Cluacina’s statues now stand: at the present day the varieties are differently distinguished into the cultivated and the wild2072 myrtle, each of which includes a kind with a large leaf. The kind known as “oxymyrsine,”2073 belongs only to the wild variety: ornamental gardeners classify several varieties of the cultivated kind; the “Tarentine,”2074 they speak of as a myrtle with a small leaf, the myrtle of this country2075 as having a broad leaf, and the hexasticha2076 as being very thickly covered with leaves, growing in rows of six: it is not, however, made any use of. There are two other kinds, that are branchy and well covered. In my opinion, the conjugula is the same that is now called the Roman myrtle. It is in Egypt that the myrtle is most odoriferous.

Cato2077 has taught us how to make a wine from the black myrtle, by drying it thoroughly in the shade, and then putting it in must: he says, also, that if the berries are not quite dry, it will produce an oil. Since his time a method has been discovered of making a pale wine from the white variety; two sextarii of pounded myrtle are steeped in three semi-sextarii of wine, and the mixture is then subjected to pressure.

The leaves2078 also are dried by themselves till they are capable of being reduced to a powder, which is used for the treatment of sores on the human body: this powder is of a slightly corrosive nature, and is employed also for the purpose of checking the perspiration. A thing that is still more remarkable, this oil is possessed of a certain vinous flavour, being, at the same time, of an unctuous nature, and remarkably efficacious for improving2079 wines. When this is done, the wine strainer2080 is dipped in the oil before it is used, the result of which is that it retains the lees of the wine, and allows nothing but the pure liquor to escape, while at the same time it accompanies the wine and causes a marked improvement in its flavour.

Sprigs of myrtle, if carried by a person when travelling on foot, are found to be very refreshing2081 on a long journey. Rings, too, made of myrtle which has never been touched by iron, are an excellent specific for swellings in the groin.2082