[2357] Il. xxiv. 277.
[2358] Pliny makes a mistake here, in copying from Theophrastus, who says that it is the yew that bears so strong a resemblance to the cedar.
[2359] Or “bull’s-ash.” This variety does not seem to have been identified.
[2360] This statement results from his misinterpretation of the language of Theophrastus, who is really speaking of the yew, which Pliny mistakes for the ash.
[2361] Miller asserts that, if given to cows, this leaf will impart a bad flavour to the milk; a statement which; Fée says, is quite incorrect.
[2362] A merely fanciful notion, without apparently the slightest foundation: the same, too, may be said of the alleged antipathy of the serpent to the beech-tree, which is neither venomous nor odoriferous.
[2363] This story of Pliny has been corroborated by M. de Verone, and as strongly contradicted by Camerarius and Charras: with M. Fée, then, we must leave it to the reader to judge which is the most likely to be speaking the truth. It is not improbable that Pliny may have been imposed upon, as his credulity would not at all times preclude him from being duped.
[2364] There is no such distinction in the linden or lime, as the flowers are hermaphroditical. They are merely two varieties: the male of Pliny being the Tilia microphylla of Decandolles, and a variety of the Tilia Europæa of Linnæus; and the female being the Tilia platyphyllos, another variety of the Tilia Europæa of Linnæus.
[2365] Not at all singular, Fée says, the fruit being dry and insipid.
[2366] In France these cords are still made, and are used for well-ropes, wheat-sheafs, &c. In the north of France, too, brooms are made of the outer bark, and the same is the case in Westphalia.