[2347] As a torch or candle, probably.
[2348] This division of the larch into sexes, as previously mentioned, is only fanciful, and has no foundation in fact. The result of this operation, Fée says, would be only a sort of tar.
[2349] See B. xxxv. c. 51. He alludes to the bitumen known as asphalt, bitumen of Judæa, mineral pitch, mountain pitch, malthe, pissalphate.
[2350] These particulars, borrowed from Theophrastus, are in general correct.
[2351] This is not the fact; the essential oil in which the resin so greatly abounds, becomes volatile with remarkable facility.
[2352] Most probably one of the varieties of the pine; but the mode in which Pliny expresses himself renders it impossible to identify it with any precision.
[2354] The name borne also by the torch-tree.
[2355] See c. [76] of this Book.
[2356] He does not speak in this place of the “ornus” or “mountain ash;” nor, as Fée observes, does he mention the use of the bark of the ash as a febrifuge, or of its leaves as a purgative. This ash is the Fraxinus excelsior of Decandolles.