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

Chapter 398: CHAP. 90.—TREES WHICH ARE THE MOST SHORT-LIVED.

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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. 90.—TREES WHICH ARE THE MOST SHORT-LIVED.

On the other hand, the pomegranate,2753 the fig, and the apple are remarkably short-lived; the precocious trees being still more so than the later ripeners, and those with sweet fruit than those with sour: among the pomegranates, too, that variety which bears the sweetest fruit lives the shortest time. The same is the case, too, with the vine,2754 and more particularly the more fruitful varieties. Græcinus informs us that vines have lasted so long as sixty years. It appears, also, that the aquatic trees die the soonest. The laurel,2755 the apple, and the pomegranate age rapidly, it is true, but then they throw out fresh shoots at the root. The olive must be looked upon, then, as being one of the most long-lived, for it is generally agreed among authors that it will last two hundred years.