[530] Theophrastus says the terebinth.
[531] From the Greek στάζω, “to drop.” Fée observes, that the moderns know nothing positive as to the mode of extracting myrrh from the tree. See the account given by Ovid, Met. B. x. l. 500 et seq. of the transformation of Myrrha into this tree,—“The warm drops fall from the tree. The tears, even, have their own honour; and the myrrh that distils from the bark bears the name of its mistress, and in no age will remain unknown.”
[532] Fée remarks, that at the present day we are acquainted only with one kind of myrrh; the fragments which bear an impression like those of nails being not a distinct kind, but a simple variety in appearance only. He thinks, also, that Pliny may very possibly be describing several distinct resinous products, under the one name of myrrh. An account of these various districts will be found in B. vi. c. 32.
[533] Hardouin suggests that it may be so called from the island of Dia, mentioned by Strabo, B. xvi.
[534] “Collatitia.” The reading, however, is very doubtful.
[535] What this was is now unknown. Fée suggests that it may have been bdellium, which is found in considerable quantities in the myrrh that is imported at the present day.
[536] This is most probably the meaning of Pliny’s expression—“Ergo transit in mastichen;” though Hardouin reads it as meaning that myrrh sometimes degenerates to mastich: and Fée, understanding the passage in the same sense, remarks that the statement is purely fabulous. Mastich, he says, is the produce of the Pistacia lentiscus of Linnæus, which abounds in Greece and the other parts of southern Europe. The greater part of the mastich of commerce comes from the island of Chio. It is impossible to conjecture to what plant Pliny here alludes, with the head of a thistle.
[537] This kind, Fée says, is quite unknown to the moderns.
[538] This substance is still gathered from the Cistus creticus of Linnæus, which is supposed to be the same as the plant leda, mentioned by Pliny. It is also most probably the same as the Cisthon, mentioned by Pliny in B. xxiv. c. 48. It is very commonly found in Spain. The substance is gathered from off the leaves, not by the aid of goats, but with whips furnished with several thongs, with which the shrubs are beaten. There are two sorts of ladanum known in commerce; the one friable, and mixed with earthy substances, and known as “ladanum in tortis;” the other black, and soft to the fingers, the only adventitious substances in which are a little sand and a few hairs.
[539] See B. vi. c. 32.