_Acer operum elegantia, & subtilitate cedro secundum; plura ejus genera: Album, quod praecipui candoris vocatur Gallicum: In Transpadana Italia, transque Alpes nascens.

Alterum genus, crispo macularum discursu, qui cum excellentior fuit, a similitudine caudae pavonum nomen accepit._ 'The maple, (says Pliny) for the elegancy and fineness of the wood, is next to the very cedar it self.

There are several kinds of it, especially the white, which is wonderfully beautiful; this is call'd the French-maple, and grows in that part of Italy, that is on the other side of Po beyond the Alpes: The other has a curl'd grain, so curiously maculated, that from a near resemblance, it was usually call'd the Peacock's-tail, &c.' He goes on to commend that of Istria, and that growing on the mountains for the best: But in the next chapter; _Pulcherrimum vero est bruscum, multoque excellentius etiamnum mollusculum, tuber utrumque arboris ejus.
Bruscum intortius crispum, molluscum simplicius sparsum; et si magnitudinem mensarum caperet, haud dubie praeferretur cedro, nunc intra pugillares, lectorumque silicios aut laminas, &c.

e brusco fiunt mensae nigrescentes, &c._ Plin.

_l._ 16.c.15, 16.
'The _bruscum_, or Knur is wonderfully fair, but the _molluscum_ is counted most precious; both of them knobs and swellings out of the tree.