reason being that it is less resinous, less soaked with pitch, smoother, and of straighter grain.[1] This aigis is found in the larger trees, when, as they have fallen down, the white outside part[2] has decayed; when this has been stripped off and the core left, it is cut out of this with the axe; and it is of a good colour with fine fibre. However the substance which the torch-cutters of Mount Ida call the 'fig,'[3] which forms in the fir and is redder in colour than the resin, is found more in the 'male' trees; it has an evil smell, not like the smell of resin, nor will it burn, but it leaps away from the fire.
[4]Such are the kinds of fir which they make out, the cultivated and the wild, the latter including the 'male' and the 'female' and also the kind which bears no fruit. However the Arcadians say that neither the sterile kind nor the cultivated is a fir, but a pine; for, they say, the trunk closely resembles the pine and has its slenderness, its stature, and the same kind[5] of wood for purposes of joinery, the trunk of the fir being thicker smoother and taller; moreover that the fir has many leaves, which are glossy massed together[6] and pendent, while in the pine and in the above-mentioned cone-bearing tree[7] the leaves are few and drier and stiffer; though in both the leaves are hair-like.[8] Also, they say, the pitch of this tree is more like that of the pine for
- ↑ εὐκτεανωτέρα: εὐκτηδονωτέρα conj. R. Const.cf. 5. 1. 9; but text is supported by Hesych. s.v. ἰθυκτέανον.
- ↑ I omit καὶ before τὰ κύκλῷ.
- ↑ Plin. 16. 44.
- ↑ ταῦτα γένη conj. R. Const. from G; ταῦτά γε UMVAld.; Plin. 16. 45–49.
- ↑ ταὐτὸ conj. W.; αὐτὸ Ald.
- ↑ βαθέα: δασέα conj. R. Const.cf. 3. 16. 2.
- ↑ i.e. the cultivated πεύκη (so called). T. uses this periphrasis to avoid begging the question of the name.
- ↑ ἄμφω δὲ τριχ. ins. here by Sch.; in MSS. and Ald. the words occur in § 5 after πιττωδέστερον.
