These knots are properly a disease or excrescence of the root, and those used for this purpose are more particularly esteemed which have lain entirely concealed under ground; they are much more rare than those that grow above ground, and that are to be found on the branches also. Thus, to speak correctly, that which we buy at so vast a price is in reality a defect in the tree: of the size and root of it a notion may be easily formed from the circular sections of its trunk. The tree resembles the wild female cypress[926] in its foliage, smell, and the appearance of the trunk. A spot called Mount Ancorarius, in Nearer Mauretania, used formerly to furnish the most esteemed citrus-wood, but at the present day the supply is quite exhausted. CHAP. 30.—THE POINTS THAT ARE DESIRABLE OR OTHERWISE IN THESE TABLES. The principal merit of these tables is to have veins[927] arranged in waving lines, or else forming spirals like so many little whirlpools. In the former arrangement the lines run in an oblong direction, for which reason these are called “tiger”[928] tables; while in the latter the marks are circling and spiral, and hence they are styled “panther”[929] tables. There are some tables also with wavy, undulating marks, and which are more particularly esteemed if these resemble the eyes on a peacock’s tail. Next in esteem to these last, as well as those previously mentioned, is the veined wood,[930] covered, as it were, with dense masses of grain, for which reason these tables have received the name of “apiatæ.”[931] But the colour of the wood is the quality that is held in the highest esteem of all: that of wine mixed with honey[932] being the most prized, the veins being peculiarly refulgent. Next to the colour, it is the size that is prized; at the present day whole trunks are greatly admired, and sometimes several are united in a single table.