CHAP. 47.—TREES WHICH ARE UNPRODUCTIVE IN CERTAIN PLACES.
Certain trees also become unproductive, owing to some fault in the locality, such, for instance, as a coppice-wood in the island of Paros, which produces nothing at all: in the Isle of Rhodes, too, the peach-trees[2509] never do anything more than blossom. This distinction may arise also from the sex; and when such is the case, it is the male[2510] tree that never produces. Some authors, however, making a transposition, assert that it is the male trees only that are prolific. Barrenness may also arise from a tree being too thickly covered with leaves.
CHAP. 48.—THE MODE IN WHICH TREES BEAR.
Some among the fruit-trees[2511] bear on both the sides of the branches and the summit, the pear, for instance, the fig-tree, and the myrtle. In other respects the trees are pretty nearly of a similar nature to the cereals, for in them we find the ear growing from the summit, while in the leguminous varieties the pod grows from the sides. The palm, as we have already[2512] stated, is the only one that has fruit hanging down in bunches enclosed in capsules.
CHAP. 49.—TREES IN WHICH THE FRUIT APPEARS BEFORE THE LEAVES.
The other trees, again, bear their fruit beneath the leaves, for the purpose of protection, with the exception of the fig, the leaf of which is very large, and gives a great abundance of shade; hence it is that we find the fruit placed above it; in addition to which, the leaf makes its appearance after the fruit. There is said to be a remarkable peculiarity connected with one species of fig that is found in Cilicia, Cyprus, and Hellas; the fruit grows beneath the leaves, while at the same time the green abortive fruit, that never reaches maturity, is seen growing on the top of them. There is also a tree that produces an early fig, known to the Athenians by the name of “prodromos.”[2513] In the Laconian varieties of this fruit more particularly, we find trees that bear two crops[2514] in the year.
CHAP. 50. (27.)—TREES THAT BEAR TWO CROPS IN A YEAR. TREES THAT BEAR THREE CROPS.
In the island of Cea there are wild figs that bear three times in one year. By the first crop the one that succeeds is summoned forth, and by that the third. It is by the agency of this last crop that caprification[2515] is performed. In the wild fig, too, the fruit grows on the opposite side of the leaves. There are some pears and apples, too, that bear two crops in the year, while there are some early varieties also. The wild apple bears twice[2516] in the year, its second crop coming on after the rising of Arcturus,[2517] in sunny localities more particularly. There are vines, too, that will even bear three times in the year, a circumstance that has procured for them the name of “frantic”[2518] vines. On these we see grapes just ripening, others beginning to swell, and others, again, in blossom, all at the same moment.
M. Varro[2519] informs us, that there was formerly at Smyrna, near[2520] the Temple of the Mother of the Gods, a vine that bore two crops in the year, as also an apple-tree of a similar nature in the territory of Consentia. This, however, is constantly to be witnessed in the territory of Tacapa,[2521] in Africa, of which we shall have to speak more fully on another occasion,[2522] so remarkable is the fertility of the soil. The cypress also bears three times in the year, for its berries are gathered in the months of January, May, and September, being all three of different size.