The moderns have attempted to ennoble our two kinds of currants by decorating them with Latin names, which recall their antiquity.[XIII-67] Vain effort! To all appearance the Greeks and people of Italy were not acquainted with the currant tree,[XIII-68] although they well deserved to possess this delicious fruit. STRAWBERRY PLANT. Among the Greeks the name of the strawberry indicated its tenuity, this fruit forming hardly a mouthful. With the Latins the name reminded one of the delicious perfume of this plant. Both nations were equally fond of it, and applied the same care to its cultivation. Virgil appears to place it in the same rank with flowers,[XIII-69] and Ovid gives it a tender epithet,[XIII-70] which delicate palates would not disavow. Neither does this luxurious poet forget the wild strawberry,[XIII-71] which disappears beneath its modest foliage, but whose presence the scented air reveals. Transported to the tables of the Luculli, by the side of its more brilliant and more beautiful sister, a flattering murmur often bore testimony to its merit, and nature triumphed in the midst of ingenious guests, soliciting of art what they repudiated in nature. MULBERRY TREE. The ancient mulberry tree was considered the wisest and most prudent of trees, because it took care, they said, not to let the smallest of its buds come to light before the cold had entirely disappeared, not to return. Then, however, it hastened to repair lost time, and a single night was sufficient to see it display its beautiful flowers, which the next morning brightly opened at the rising of Aurora.[XIII-72] The voluptuous Romans, reposing late on their soft couches the day after the fatigues of a banquet worthy of Vitellius, did not trouble themselves much about this interesting phenomenon, which occurred, if Pliny does not mistake, in the gardens of their villas. But they knew that mulberries agree with the stomach, that they afford hardly any nourishment, and easily digest:[XIII-73] therefore, no sooner had they opened their heavy eyelids than an Egyptian boy--attentive living bell--at a sign disappeared, and quickly returned, bearing a small crystal vase, filled with mulberry juice and wine reduced by boiling. This beneficent fruit preserved in this mixture all its sweet flavour,[XIII-74] and enabled the rich patrician to await until evening the hour for new excesses. It is quite evident that this luscious fruit was a native of Canaan, for the high road by which the tribes of Israel went up to the feasts at Jerusalem lay through the valley of _Baka_, or Mulberry Tree;[XIII-75] and the whole tract of country from Ekron to Gaza abounded in these trees. XIV. SHELL FRUIT. ALMOND TREE.