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

Chapter 369: CHAP. 61.—THAT THE EARTH OFTEN BEARS PRODUCTIONS WHICH IT HAS NEVER BORNE BEFORE.

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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. 61.—THAT THE EARTH OFTEN BEARS PRODUCTIONS WHICH IT HAS NEVER BORNE BEFORE.

It is not only the quality of the soil and the unchanging influences of the climate that affect the nature of trees, but wet and showery weather also, temporarily at least. Indeed, the torrents very often bring down with them seeds, and sometimes we find those of unknown kinds even floating along. This took place in the territory of Cyrenaica, at the period when laser was first grown there, as we shall have occasion to mention when we speak of the nature of the various herbs.2583 A forest, too, sprang 2584 up in the vicinity of the city of Cyrene, just after a shower of rain, of a dense, pitchy nature, about the year of the City of Rome 430.