History of Rare Plants Observed in Pannonia

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several [veins] running out from the central rib to the sides, shiny on the upper side but not at all on the lower. The color in old leaves is a dark green, but in new ones it is a pale green. The taste is bitter, rivaling peach kernels or bitter almonds. I have never seen the flower, nor the fruit itself freshly picked from the tree. However, the fruit sent from Constantinople at the beginning of the year 1574, and again in 1581, was oval in shape and the size of a small plum. It is very similar to the Sebesten fruit The Sebesten is the fruit of the Cordia myxa tree, often used in 16th-century medicine. It was black and wrinkled on the outside, containing a sweet and edible pulp like that of carob pods original: "ceratiorum". Inside are hidden two or three flat, reddish-brown seeds. These are very much like the seeds of the African Lotus, commonly called the Guaiacana The Date Plum or Diospyros lotus. My friends in Belgium can testify to this, as I sent them samples this year, and also seven years ago along with the small, white, oblong, and acidic plums from Galata and Pera Galata and Pera were the European districts of Constantinople.

Furthermore, two years later, at the start of January 1576, I received a small shrub of it from the Illustrious Lord David Ungnad. He was the Imperial Ambassador to the Turkish Emperor. This shrub exceeded a man's height and was as thick as an arm. It arrived with several other rare shrubs. However, since the winter was very harsh and they had been poorly cared for by the person who brought them, they all died at the roots during the journey. Only this plant and the Horse chestnut original: "Castanea equina" survived, which I will discuss in the next chapter. In fact, this plant almost died too. I placed it in a cellar in the same small barrel in which it had been brought, using the same soil. When I took it out in April, I found its branches completely dry. I pruned them back to the living wood and placed the small vessel in a shaded area. I did this so it would not be dried out too much by the sun's rays and might sprout again more easily. Finally, in Autumn, it began to produce several shoots near the root. I transplanted these, along with the part of the trunk to which they were attached, into another

vas The catchword "vas" translates to "vessel" or "pot," indicating the first word of the next page