There is a small wild[1761] quince also, the smell of which, next to that of the strutheum, is the most powerful; it grows in the hedges.
CHAP. 11.—SIX VARIETIES OF THE PEACH.
Under the head of apples,[1762] we include a variety of fruits, although of an entirely different nature, such as the Persian[1763] apple, for instance, and the pomegranate, of which, when speaking of the tree, we have already enumerated[1764] nine varieties. The pomegranate has a seed within, enclosed in a skin; the peach has a stone inside. Some among the pears, also, known as “libralia,”[1765] show, by their name, what a remarkable weight they attain.
(12.) Among the peaches the palm must be awarded to the duracinus:[1766] the Gallic and the Asiatic peach are distinguished respectively by the names of the countries of their origin. They ripen at the end of autumn, though some of the early[1767] kinds are ripe in the summer. It is only within the last thirty years that these last have been introduced; originally they were sold at the price of a denarius a piece. Those known as the “supernatia”[1768] come from the country of the Sabines, but the “popularia” grow everywhere. This is a very harmless fruit, and a particular favourite with invalids: some, in fact, have sold before this as high as thirty sesterces apiece, a price that has never been exceeded by any other fruit. This, too, is the more to be wondered at, as there is none that is a worse keeper: for, when it is once plucked, the longest time that it will keep is a couple of days; and so sold it must be, fetch what it may.
CHAP. 12. (13).—TWELVE KINDS OF PLUMS.
Next comes a vast number of varieties of the plum, the parti-coloured, the black,[1769] the white,[1770] the barley[1771] plum—so called, because it is ripe at barley-harvest—and another of the same colour as the last, but which ripens later, and is of a larger size, generally known as the “asinina,”[1772] from the little esteem in which it is held. There are the onychina, too, the cerina,[1773]—more esteemed, and the purple[1774] plum: the Armenian,[1775] also an exotic from foreign parts, the only one among the plums that recommends itself by its smell. The plum-tree grafted on the nut exhibits what we may call a piece of impudence quite its own, for it produces a fruit that has all the appearance of the parent stock, together with the juice of the adopted fruit: in consequence of its being thus compounded of both, it is known by the name of “nuci-pruna.”[1776] Nut-prunes, as well as the peach, the wild plum,[1777] and the cerina, are often put in casks, and so kept till the crop comes of the following year. All the other varieties ripen with the greatest rapidity, and pass off just as quickly. More recently, in Bætica, they have begun to introduce what they call “malina,” or the fruit of the plum engrafted on the apple-tree,[1778] and “amygdalina,” the fruit of the plum engrafted on the almond-tree,[1779] the kernel found in the stone of these last being that of the almond;[1780] indeed, there is no specimen in which two fruits have been more ingeniously combined in one.
Among the foreign trees we have already spoken[1781] of the Damascene[1782] plum, so called from Damascus, in Syria, but introduced long since into Italy; though the stone of this plum is larger than usual, and the flesh smaller in quantity. This plum will never dry so far as to wrinkle; to effect that, it needs the sun of its own native country. The myxa,[1783] too, may be mentioned, as being the fellow-countryman of the Damascene: it has of late been introduced into Rome, and has been grown engrafted upon the sorb.
CHAP. 13.—THE PEACH.
The name of “Persica,” or “Persian apple,” given to this fruit, fully proves that it is an exotic in both Greece as well as Asia,[1784] and that it was first introduced from Persis. As to the wild plum, it is a well-known fact that it will grow anywhere; and I am, therefore, the more surprised that no mention has been made of it by Cato, more particularly as he has pointed out the method of preserving several of the wild fruits as well. As to the peach-tree, it has been only introduced of late years, and with considerable difficulty; so much so, that it is perfectly barren in the Isle of Rhodes, the first resting-place[1785] that it found after leaving Egypt.
It is quite untrue that the peach which grows in Persia is poisonous, and produces dreadful tortures, or that the kings of that country, from motives of revenge, had it transplanted in Egypt, where, through the nature of the soil, it lost all its evil properties—for we find that it is of the “persea”[1786] that the more careful writers have stated all this,[1787] a totally different tree, the fruit of which resembles the red myxa, and, indeed, cannot be successfully cultivated anywhere but in the East. The learned have also maintained that it was not introduced from Persis into Egypt with the view of inflicting punishment, but say that it was planted at Memphis by Perseus; for which reason it was that Alexander gave orders that the victors should be crowned with it in the games which he instituted there in honour of his[1788] ancestor: indeed, this tree has always leaves and fruit upon it, growing immediately upon the others. It must be quite evident to every one that all our plums have been introduced since the time of Cato.[1789]