Latin Texts & Translations

It is for the sake of their timber that Nature has created the other trees, and more particularly the ash, ^[Note] which yields it in greater abundance. This is a tall, tapering tree, with a feather-like leaf: it has been greatly ennobled by the encomiums of Homer, and the fact that it formed the spear of Achilles: ^[Note] the wood of it is employed for numerous purposes. The ash which grows upon Mount Ida, in Troas, is so extremely like the cedar, ^[Note] that, when the bark is removed, it will deceive a purchaser.

The Greeks have distinguished two varieties of this tree, the one long and without knots, the other short, with a harder wood, of a darker colour, and a leaf like that of the laurel. In Macedonia they give the name of "bumelia" ^[Note] to an ash of remarkably large size, with a wood of extreme flexibility. Some authors have divided this tree into several varieties, ac- cording to the localities which it inhabits, and say that the ash of the plains has a spotted wood, while that of the mountain ash is more compact. Some Greek writers have stated hat the leaf of the ash is poisonous ^[Note] to beasts of burden, but harmless to all the animals that ruminate ^[Note] The leaves of his tree in Italy, however, are not injurious to beasts of burden even; so far from it, in fact, that nothing has been found to act as so good a specific for the bites of serpents ^[Note] as to drink the juice extracted from the leaves, and to apply them to the wounds. So great, too, are the virtues of this tree, that no serpent will ever lie in the shadow thrown by it, either in the

morning or the evening, be it ever so long; indeed, they will always keep at the greatest possible distance from it. We state the fact from ocular demonstration, ^[Note] that if a serpent and a lighted fire are placed within a circle formed of the leaves of the ash, the reptile will rather throw itself into the fire than encounter the leaves of the tree. By a wonderful provision of Nature, the ash has been made to blossom before the serpents leave their holes, and the fall of its leaf does not take place till after they have retired for the winter.