We give the name of nut, too, to the chesnut,[1971] although it would seem more properly to belong to the acorn tribe. The chesnut has its armour of defence in a shell bristling with prickles like the hedge-hog, an envelope which in the acorn is only partially developed. It is really surprising, however, that Nature should have taken such pains thus to conceal an object of so little value. We sometimes find as many as three nuts beneath a single outer shell. The skin[1972] of the nut is limp and flexible: there is a membrane, too, which lies next to the body of the fruit, and which, both in this and in the walnut, spoils the flavour if not taken off. Chesnuts are the most pleasant eating when roasted:[1973] they are sometimes ground also, and are eaten by women when fasting for religious scruples,[1974] as bearing some resemblance to bread. It is from Sardes[1975] that the chesnut was first introduced, and hence it is that the Greeks have given it the name of the “Sardian acorn;” for the name “Dios balanon”[1976] was given at a later period, after it had been considerably improved by cultivation.
At the present day there are numerous varieties of the chesnut. Those of Tarentum are a light food, and by no means difficult of digestion; they are of a flat shape. There is a rounder variety, known as the “balanitis;”[1977] it is very easily peeled, and springs clean out of the shell, so to say, of its own accord. The Salarian[1978] chesnut has a smooth outer shell, while that of Tarentum is not so easily handled.[1979] The Corellian is more highly esteemed, as is the Etereian, which is an offshoot from it produced by a method upon which we shall have to enlarge when we come to speak of grafting.[1980] This last has a red skin,[1981] which causes it to be preferred to the three-cornered chesnut and our black common sorts, which are known as “coctivæ.”[1982] Tarentum and Neapolis in Campania are the most esteemed localities for the chesnut: other kinds, again, are grown to feed pigs upon,[1983] the skin of which is rough and folded inwards, so as to penetrate to the heart of the kernel.
CHAP. 26. (24.)—THE CAROB.
The carob,[1984] a fruit of remarkable sweetness, does not appear to be so very dissimilar to the chesnut, except that the skin[1985] is eaten as well as the inside. It is just the length of a finger, and about the thickness of the thumb, being sometimes of a curved shape, like a sickle. The acorn cannot be reckoned in the number of the fruits; we shall, therefore, speak of it along with the trees of that class.[1986]
CHAP. 27.—THE FLESHY FRUITS. THE MULBERRY.
The other fruits belong to the fleshy kind, and differ both in the shape and the flesh. The flesh of the various berries,[1987] of the mulberry, and of the arbute, are quite different from one another—and then what a difference, too, between the grape, which is only skin and juice,[1988] the myxa plum, and the flesh of some berries,[1989] such as the olive, for instance! In the flesh of the mulberry there is a juice of a vinous flavour, and the fruit assumes three different colours, being at first white, then red, and ripe when black. The mulberry blossoms one of the very last,[1990] and yet is among the first to ripen: the juice of the fruit, when ripe, will stain the hands, but that of the unripe fruit will remove the marks. It is in this tree that human ingenuity has effected the least improvement[1991] of all; there are no varieties here, no modifications effected by grafting, nor, in fact, any other improvement except that the size of the fruit, by careful management, has been increased. At Rome, there is a distinction made between the mulberries of Ostia and those of Tusculum. A variety grows also on brambles, but the flesh of the fruit is of a very different nature.[1992]
CHAP. 28.—THE FRUIT OF THE ARBUTUS.
The flesh of the ground-strawberry[1993] is very different to that of the arbute-tree,[1994] which is of a kindred kind: indeed, this is the only instance in which we find a similar fruit growing upon a tree and on the ground. The tree is tufted and bushy; the fruit takes a year to ripen, the blossoms of the young fruit flowering while that of the preceding year is arriving at maturity. Whether it is the male tree or the female that is unproductive, authors are not generally agreed.
This is a fruit held in no esteem, in proof of which it has gained its name of “unedo,”[1995] people being generally content with eating but one. The Greeks, however, have found for it two names—“comaron” and “memecylon,” from which it would appear[1996] that there are two varieties. It has also with us another name besides that of “unedo,” being known also as the “arbutus.” Juba states that in Arabia this tree attains the height of fifty cubits.