[1661] More commonly spelt “pausia.”
[1662] “Regia.” It is impossible to identify these varieties.
[1663] 8th of February.
[1664] This assertion of Pliny is not generally true. The large olives of Spain yield oil very plentifully.
[1665] Probably a member of the variety known to naturalists as the Olea fructu majori, carne crassâ, of Tournefort, the royal olive or “triparde” of the French. The name is thought to be from the Greek φαῦλος, the fruit being considered valueless from its paucity of oil.
[1666] There are but few olive-trees in either Egypt or Decapolis at the present day, and no attempts are made to extract oil from them.
[1667] “Carnis.” He gives this name to the solid part, or pericarp.
[1668] See B. iii. c. 9.
[1669] These methods are not now adopted for preserving the olive. The fruit are first washed in an alkaline solution, and then placed in salt and water. The colymbas was so called from κολυμβάω, “to swim,” in its own oil, namely. Dioscorides descants on the medicinal properties of the colymbades. B. i. c. 140.
[1670] There are several varieties known of this colour, and more particularly the fruit of the Olea atro-rubens of Gouan.