Note 429 — BOOK XII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF TREES.

It is not improbable that Pliny, in copying from Theophrastus, has here committed an error. That author, B. ix. c. 7, says: ἐν μὲν γὰρ τῷ Ἀδρίᾳ πλάτανον οὔ φασιν εἶναι, πλὴν περὶ τὸ Διομήδους ἱερόν· σπανίαν δὲ καὶ ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ πάσῃ. “They say that in Adria there are no plane-trees, except about the temple of Diomedes: and that they are extremely rare in Italy.” Pliny, probably, when his secretary was reading to him, mistook the word σπανίαν, “rare,” for Ἱσπανίᾳ “in Spain.”