Chap. 12 The Kermes Berry
The holm oak, however, by its scarlet berry2272 alone challenges competition with all these manifold productions. This grain appears at first sight to be a roughness on the surface of the tree, as it were, a small kind of the aquifolia2273 variety of holm oak, known as the cusculium.2274 To the poor in Spain it furnishes2275 the means of paying one half of their tribute. We have already, when speaking2276 of the purple of the murex, mentioned the best methods adopted for using it. It is produced also in Galatia, Africa, Pisidia, and Cilicia: the most inferior kind is that of Sardinia.