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CHAP. 43. (26.)—AT WHAT PERIOD EACH TREE BEARS FRUIT. THE CORNEL.

Upon some trees the fruit does not follow immediately upon the fall of the blossom. The cornel1 about the summer solstice puts forth a fruit that is white at first, and after that the colour of blood. The female2 of this tree, after autumn, bears a sour berry, which no animal will touch; its wood, too, is spongy and quite useless, while, on the other hand, that of the male tree is one of the very strongest and hardest3 woods known: so great a difference do we find in trees belonging to the same species. The terebinth, the maple, and the ash produce their seed at harvest-time, while the nut-trees, the apple, and the pear, with the exception of the winter or the more early kinds, bear fruit in autumn. The glandiferous trees bear at a still later period, the setting of the Vergiliæ,4 with the exception of the æsculus,5 which bears in the autumn only; while some kinds of the apple and the pear, and the cork-tree, bear fruit at the beginning of winter.

The fir puts forth blossoms of a saffron colour about the summer solstice, and the seed is ripe just after the setting of the Vergiliæ. The pine and the pitch-tree germinate about fifteen days before the fir, but their seed is not ripe till after the setting of the Vergiliæ.

1 The Cornus mas of botanists; probably the Frutex sanguineus mentioned in c. 30. See also B. xv. c. 31.

2 Probably the Lonicera Alpiena of Linnæus; the fruit of which resembles a cherry, but is of a sour flavour, and produces vomiting.

3 The wood is so durable, that a tree of this kind in the forest of Montmorency is said to be a thousand years old.

4 See B. xviii. cc. 59,60.

5 See c. 6 of this Book.

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