Dryad

The Maliades, Meliades or Epimelides were nymphs of apple and other fruit trees and the protectors of sheep.

The Hesperides, the guardians of the golden apples, were regarded as this type of dryad.

For these reasons, dryads and the Greek gods punished any mortal who harmed trees without first propitiating the tree-nymphs.

[3] The Meliae sisters tended the infant Zeus in Rhea's Cretan cave.

In Hesiod's Theogony, Gaia gave birth to the Meliae after being made fertile by the blood of the castrated Uranus.