CHAP. 43. (26.)—AT WHAT PERIOD EACH TREE BEARS FRUIT. THE CORNEL.
Upon some trees the fruit does not follow immediately upon the fall of the blossom. The cornel[2491] about the summer solstice puts forth a fruit that is white at first, and after that the colour of blood. The female[2492] of this tree, after autumn, bears a sour berry, which no animal will touch; its wood, too, is spongy and quite useless, while, on the other hand, that of the male tree is one of the very strongest and hardest[2493] woods known: so great a difference do we find in trees belonging to the same species. The terebinth, the maple, and the ash produce their seed at harvest-time, while the nut-trees, the apple, and the pear, with the exception of the winter or the more early kinds, bear fruit in autumn. The glandiferous trees bear at a still later period, the setting of the Vergiliæ,[2494] with the exception of the æsculus,[2495] which bears in the autumn only; while some kinds of the apple and the pear, and the cork-tree, bear fruit at the beginning of winter.
The fir puts forth blossoms of a saffron colour about the summer solstice, and the seed is ripe just after the setting of the Vergiliæ. The pine and the pitch-tree germinate about fifteen days before the fir, but their seed is not ripe till after the setting of the Vergiliæ.