ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, V. III. 7–IV. 1
is abundance of it where now the city stands, and men can still recall that some of the roofs in ancient times were made of it. For the wood is absolutely proof against decay, and the root is of very compact texture, and they make of it the most valuable articles. Images are carved from these woods, prickly cedar cypress nettle-tree box, and the small ones also from the roots of the olive, which are unbreakable and of a more or less uniformly fleshy character. The above facts illustrate certain special features of position, natural character and use.
Of differences in timber as to hardness and heaviness.
IV. Difference in weight is clearly to be determined by closeness or openness of texture, dampness or dryness, degree of glutinousness, hardness or softness. Now some woods are both hard and heavy, as box and oak, while those that are brittle and hardest owing to their dryness, are not heavy. [1]All wood of wild trees, as we have said before, is closer harder heavier, and in general stronger than that of the cultivated forms, and there is the same difference between the wood of 'male' and of 'female' trees, and in general between trees which bear no fruit and those which have fruit, and between those which bear inferior fruit and those whose fruit is better; on the other hand occasionally the 'male' tree is the more fruitful, for instance, it is said, the cypress the cornelian cherry and others. However of vines it is clear that those which bear less fruit have also more frequent knots and are more solid,[2] and so too with apples and other cultivated trees.
