109Nor indeed can all lands bear all things. 110Willows grow by rivers, alders in thick marshes, barren manna-ashes on rocky mountains; 112shores are happiest with myrtle-groves; 112finally, Bacchus loves open hills, the yews the north wind and the cold. 114Look too at the world subdued by its farthest cultivators, the eastern homes of the Arabs and the painted Geloni: trees have their own separate homelands. 116India alone bears black ebony; to the Sabaeans alone belongs the frankincense bough. 118Why should I tell you of balsams sweating from fragrant wood, and of the berries of the ever-leafy acanthus? 120Why of the groves of the Ethiopians, white with soft wool, and how the Seres comb fine fleeces from leaves; 122or of the groves that India bears nearer the Ocean, the farthest nook of the world, where no arrows by their flight have ever been able to clear the air at the tree's top?
125And yet that race is not slow when it has taken up its quivers. 126Media bears the bitter juices and lingering taste of the blessed citron, than which no aid comes more effective, whenever cruel stepmothers have poisoned cups, and mixed in herbs and not harmless spells, and none drives black poisons from the limbs more surely. 131The tree itself is large, and in appearance very like the laurel; 132and if it did not fling abroad a different scent, it would be a laurel; 133its leaves fall in no winds; 134its flower clings fast beyond all others; 134with it the Medes treat their breath and evil-smelling mouths, and cure old men short of breath.