CHAP. 45.—TREES WHICH BEAR NO FRUIT: TREES LOOKED UPON AS ILL-OMENED.
The only ones among all the trees that bear nothing whatever, not so much as any seed even, are the tamarisk,[2499] which is used only for making brooms, the poplar,[2500] the alder, the Atinian elm,[2501] and the alaternus,[2502] which has a leaf between that of the holm-oak and the olive. Those trees are regarded as sinister,[2503] and are considered inauspicious, which are never propagated from seed, and bear no fruit. Cremutius informs us, that this tree, being the one upon which Phyllis[2504] hanged herself, is never green. Those trees which produce a gum open of themselves after germination: the gum never thickens until after the fruit has been removed.