Citrea mensa.
For a detailed description of what was known of this tree to the ancients, and of its value, we must refer to the description in Pliny (‘Nat. Hist.’ book xiii. chaps. 29, 30). This author describes it as the thyion and thyia of Homer and the Greeks, and adds that its wood was used with the unguents burnt for their pleasant odour by Circe; as also that Theophrastus awarded a high rank to it, the timber being used for roofing temples and being indestructible; as also that it is produced in the lower part of Cyrenaica, and that the finest kind grows in the vicinity of the temple of Jupiter Ammon.
Pliny himself gives Mount Atlas as the native country of the wood; in the vicinity of which, he says, is Mauritania, a country in which abounds a tree which has given rise to the mania for fine tables, an extravagance with which women reproach the men when they complain of their vast outlay upon pearls. He attributes the knots from which the tables are made to a disease or excrescence of the roots, of which the most esteemed are entirely concealed under ground, these being much more rare than those which are produced above ground, and that are to be found on the branches also.
The principal merits of the tables were to have veins arranged in waving lines, or forming spirals like whirlpools. The former they called ‘tiger’ and the latter ‘panther’ tables; whilst others, which are highly esteemed, have markings resembling the eyes on a peacock’s tail. In others, again, called ‘apiatæ,’ the wood appears as if covered with dense masses of grain. The most esteemed colour was that of wine mixed with honey.
In respect of their size, Pliny gives a little over 4 ft. as the average maximum, though one that belonged to Ptolemæus, King of Mauritania, was 4½ ft. in diameter and ¼ of a foot in thickness. It was formed of two semi-diameters so skilfully united that the joining was concealed. Another, made of a single piece, was named after Nonius, a freedman of Tiberius Cæsar, and was 4 ft. less ¾ in. in diameter, and 5¼ inches in thickness. And with regard to the price, Cicero paid a million sesterces (9,000l.) for one; two belonging to King Juba were sold by auction, one for one million two hundred thousand sesterces, and the other for somewhat less. Some of Pliny’s statements are probably fabulous; as that the barbarians bury the wood when green, first giving it a coating of wax, and that the workmen, when it comes into their hands, put it for seven days beneath a heap of corn, and then take it out for as many more, after which it is surprising to find how much it has lost in weight. More apocryphal still is his statement that it is dried by the action of sea-water, and thereby acquires a hardness and density that render it proof against corruption; also that, as if created for the behoof of wine, it receives no injury from it.[5]
In Marocco, where no ornament or article of luxury is known, it need hardly be said that the Alerce wood is employed only for building purposes and fire-wood; though the resin called Sandarach, which was once a reputed medicine, is collected by the Moors and exported from Mogador to Europe, where it is used as a varnish.
Gum Arabic.
Acacia gummifera.—Willd. Sp. Pl. iv. 1056; DC. Prod. ii. 455; Hayne, Arzneigew. x. t. 8; Benth. in Trans. Linn. Soc. xxx. 509; Ball, in Journ. Linn. Soc. Bot. xvi. 442.
Mimosa gummifera.—Brouss. in Poir. Dict. Suppl. i. 164.
Acacia coronillæfolia.—Desf. Cat. Hort. Par. ed. ii. 207.