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

Chapter 360: CHAP. 52.—TREES WHICH BEAR VARIOUS PRODUCTS. CRATÆGUM.

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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. 52.—TREES WHICH BEAR VARIOUS PRODUCTS. CRATÆGUM.

Many trees bear more than one production, a fact which we have already mentioned 2530 when speaking of the glandiferous trees. In the number of these there is the laurel, which bears its own peculiar kind of grape, and more particularly the barren laurel,2531 which bears nothing else; for which reason it is looked upon by some persons as the male tree. The filbert, too, bears catkins, which are hard and compact, but of no use 2532 whatever.

(30.) But it is the box-tree that supplies us with the greatest number of products, not only its seed, but a berry also, known by the name of cratægum;2533 while on the north side it produces mistletoe, and on the south hyphear; two products of which I shall shortly have to speak more 2534 at length. Sometimes, indeed, this tree has all four of these products growing upon it at the same moment.