[142] “Guttam.” This is the substance known to us as “honey-dew.” It is either secreted by the plant itself, or deposited on the leaves by an aphis. It is found more particularly on the leaves of the rose, the plane, the lime, and the maple. Bees and ants are particularly fond of it.
[143] Bee-glue. See B. xi. c. 6, and B. xxii. c. 50.
[144] See B. xvi. c. 29. The bark of the elm, like that of most other trees, has certain astringent properties.
[145] Fée says that it is only some few years since the inner bark of the elm was sometimes prescribed medicinally, but that it has now completely fallen into disuse. All that Pliny says here of the virtues of the elm is entirely suppositious.
[146] A kind of honey-dew, no doubt.
[147] “Cauliculi foliorum primi.”
[148] “Extrahuntque per fistulas.”
[149] In B. xvi. c. 74.
[150] See B. xvi. c. 25. The blossoms of the linden-tree are the only part of it employed in modern medicine. Fée thinks, with Hardouin, that Pliny has here attributed to the linden, or Philyra of the Greeks, the properties which in reality were supposed to belong to the Phillyrea latifolia, a shrub resembling the wild olive. Dioscorides, in his description of its properties, has not fallen into the same error.
[151] “Ground elder” or “marsh elder;” the Sambucus ebulus of Linnæus, or dwarf elder. The other kind mentioned by Pliny is the Sambucus nigra of Linnæus, or black elder.