Page:Enquiry into plants (Volume 1).pdf/271

 them both 'cedar,' distinguishing them however as 'the cedar' and 'prickly cedar.' Both are branching trees with many joints and twisted wood. On the other hand arkeuthos has only a small amount of close core, which, when the tree is cut, soon rots, while the trunk of 'cedar' consists mainly of heart and does not rot. The colour of the heart in each case is red: that of the 'cedar' is fragrant, but not that of the other. The fruit of 'cedar' is yellow, as large as the myrtle-berry, fragrant, and sweet to the taste. That of arkeuthos is like it in other respects, but black, of astringent taste and practically uneatable; it remains on the tree for a year, and then, when another grows, last year's fruit falls off. According to the Arcadians it has three fruits on the tree at once, last year's, which is not yet ripe, that of the year before last which is now ripe and eatable, and it also shews the new fruit. Satyrus said that the wood-cutters gathered him specimens of both kinds which were flowerless. The bark is like that of the cypress but rougher. Both kinds have spreading shallow roots. These trees grow in rocky cold parts and seek out such districts.

There are three kinds of mespile, anthedon (oriental thorn), sataneios (medlar) and anthedonoeides (hawthorn), as the people of mount Ida distinguish them. The fruit of the medlar is larger paler more spongy and contains softer stones; in the other