Enquiry into Plants

species; E. arren (male fir) and E. theleia (female fir), lib. iii. ch. 8. c Page 105. The former is described as having "leaves more pungent and epestrommenois" (so it is written in the Basil. codex; in others epestrammenois, which in no way suits the leaves of the Pinus): a description that aptly fits the Pinus Abies of Linnaeus (the "Spruce Fir" to us), the leaves of which are clustered. See Table, fig. A. The Elate theleia, on the other hand, has a leaf hos pterygas (like the feathers of a wing) and ep' elatton (gradually diminishing), so that the whole form is dome-shaped, and most similar to the Boeotian caps (kyneas). (In the margin of Budaeus's edition, it reads kyathois—cups.) Theodorus translated this passage as follows: "a pinnate leaf, and tending towards narrowness, so that the whole appearance may seem vaulted, and might appear most of all like the helmets of the Boeotians." Anyone, not to mention a botanist, will easily affirm that Theophrastus did not write such a thing, and that Theodorus interpreted the unknown into Latin by something still more unknown. The word Tholus (Gr. Tholos) occurs in Varro in his description of the Aviary constructed for keeping and fattening thrushes. Varr. lib. iii. ch. 5: "The tholus is an interior chamber densely columnated; the outer columns of stone, the inner ones thin, made of Fir," that is, so dense that these tiny birds cannot pass through. From the latticed-column structure of the Tholus, one may conjecture that it signifies some sort of latticed vault. Tholos, or the pantry, in Homer's Odyssey,