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 divided; it is smooth, but more delicate, less fleshy, softer, longer in proportion to its breadth, and the divisions all tend to meet in a point, while they do not occur so much in the middle of the leaf, but rather at the tip; and for their size the leaves have not many fibres. The bark too is somewhat rougher than that of the lime, of blackish colour thick closer than that of the Aleppo pine and stiff; the roots are few shallow and compact for the most part, both those of the yellow and those of the white-wooded tree. This tree occurs chiefly in wet ground, as the people of Mount Ida say, and is rare. About its flower they did not know, but the fruit, they said, is not very oblong, but like that of Christ's thorn, except that it is more oblong than that. But the people of Mount Olympus say that, while zygia is rather a mountain tree, the maple proper grows also in the plains; and that the form which grows in the mountains has yellow wood of a bright colour, which is of compact texture and hard, and is used even for expensive work, while that of the plains has white wood of looser make and less compact texture. And some call it gleinos instead of maple. …… The wood of the 'male' tree is of compacter texture and twisted; this tree, it is said, grows rather in the plain and puts forth its leaves earlier.

There are also two kinds of ash. Of these one is lofty and of strong growth with white wood of good fibre, softer, with less knots, and of more compact