kinds it is somewhat smaller,[1] more fragrant and of more astringent taste, so that it can be stored for a longer time. The wood also of these kinds is closer and yellower, though in other respects it does not differ. The flower in all the kinds is like the almond flower, except that it is not pink, as that is, but greenish ……[2] In stature the tree is large and it has thick foliage. The leaf in the young tree is round[3] but much divided and like celery at the tip; but the leaf of older trees is very much divided and forms angles with larger divisions; it is smooth[4] fibrous thinner and more oblong than the celery leaf, both as a whole and in its divisions, and it has a jagged edge all round.[5] It has a long thin stalk, and the leaves turn bright red before they are shed. The tree has many roots, which run deep; wherefore it lives a long time and is hard to kill. The wood is close and hard and does not rot. The tree grows from seed and also from a piece torn off. It is subject to a disease which causes it to become worm-eaten[6] in its old age, and the worms are large and different[7] to those engendered by other trees.
[8]Of the sorb they make two kinds, the 'female' which bears fruit and the 'male' which is barren. There are moreover differences in the fruit of the 'female' kind in some forms it is round, in others oblong and egg-shaped. There are also differences
- ↑ ἐλάττω τέ τι conj. W.; ἐλάττω εἰσὶ U Ald.
- ↑ W. suggests that some words are missing here, as it does not appear to which kind of μεσπίλη the following description belongs; hence various difficulties. See Sch.
- ↑ Probably a lacuna in the text. W. thus supplies the sense: he suggests σικυοειδές for σελινοειδές.
- ↑ τετανὸν: cf. 3. 1.. 1; 3. 15. 6.
- ↑ περικεχαραγμένον conj. Scal,; περικεθαρμένον U; περικεκαρμένον MVAld. cf. allusions to the leaf of μεσπίλη, 3. 13. 1; 3. 15. 6.
- ↑ cf. 4. 14. 10; Plin. 17. 221; Pall. 4. 10.
- ↑ ἴδιοι Ald. (for construction cf. Plat. Gorg. 481 c); ἰδίους UMV (the first ι corrected in U). W. adopts Sch.'s conj., ἡδίους, in allusion to the edible cossus: cf. Plin. l.c.
- ↑ Plin. 15. 85.
