texture[1]; the other is shorter, less vigorous in growth, rougher harder and yellower. The leaves in shape are like those of the bay, that is, the broad-leaved bay, but they contract to a sharper point, and they have a sort of jagged outline with sharp points. The whole leaf (if one may consider this as[2] a 'leaf' because it is all shed at once) grows on a single stalk; on either side of a single fibre, as it were, the leaflets grow at a joint in pairs, which are numerous and distinct, just as in the sorb. In some leaves the joints are short[3] and the pairs fewer in number, but in those of the white kind the joint is long and the pairs more numerous, while the leaflets are longer narrower and leek-green in colour. Also this tree has a smooth bark, which is dry thin and red in colour. The roots are matted stout and shallow.[4] As to the fruit, the people of Ida supposed it to have none, and no flower either; however it has a nut-like fruit in a thin pod, like the fruit of the almond, and it is somewhat bitter in taste. And it also bears certain other things like winter-buds, as does the bay, but they are more solid,[5] and each separate one is globular, like those of the plane; some of these occur around the fruit, some, in fact the greater number,[6] are at a distance from it. The smooth kind[7] grows mostly in deep ravines and damp places, the rough kind occurs also in dry and rocky parts. Some, for instance the Macedonians, call the
- ↑ οὐλότερον: ἀνουλότερον W. from Sch.'s conk.; ἄνουλος does not occur elsewhere and T. uses μανός as the opposite of οὖλος.
- ↑ i.e. instead of considering the leaflets as the unit. For the description cf. 3. 12. 5; 3. 15. 4.
- ↑ βραχέα conj. Scal. from G; τραχέα UAld.H.
- ↑ Bod. inserts οὐ before μετέωρον; cf. 3. 6. 5. (Idaean account.)
- ↑ στιφρότερα conj. Dalec.; στρυφνότερα MSS.
- ↑ πλεῖστα conj. R. Const.; πλεκτὰ UMVAld.
- ↑ cf. Plin., l.c.
