Enquiry into Plants/Volume 1/Chapter 6

by Theophrastus

Characteristic differences in the parts of plants, whether general, special, or seen in qualities and properties.

V. Next we must try to give the differences as to particular parts, in the first instance speaking broadly of those of a general character,^[1] and then of special differences between individual kinds; and after that we must take a wider range, making as it were a fresh survey.^[2]

Some plants grow straight up and have tall stems, as silver-fir fir cypress; some are by comparison crooked and have short stems, as willow fig pomegranate; and there are like differences as to degree of thickness. Again some have a single stem, others many stems; and this difference corresponds^[3] more or less to that between those which have sidegrowths and those which have none, or that between those which have many branches and those which have few, such as the date-palm. And in these very instances we have also differences in strength thickness and the like. Again some have thin bark, such as bay and lime; others have a thick bark, such as the oak. And again some have smooth bark, as apple and fig; others rough bark, as 'wild oak' (Valonia oak) cork-oak and date-palm. However all plants when young have smoother bark, which gets rougher^[4] as they get older; and some have cracked bark,^[5] as the vine; and in some cases it readily drops off, as in andrachne apple^[6] and arbutus. And again of some the bark is fleshy, as in cork-oak oak poplar; while in others it is fibrous and not fleshy; and this applies alike to trees shrubs and annual plants, for instance to vines reeds and wheat. Again in some the bark has more than one layer, as in lime silver-fir vine Spanish broom^[7] onions^[8]; while in some it consists of only one coat, as in fig reed darnel. Such are the respects in which bark differs.

Next of the woods themselves and of stems generally some are fleshy, as in oak and fig, and, among lesser plants, in buckthorn^[9] beet hemlock^[10]; while some are not fleshy, for instance, prickly cedar nettle-tree cypress. Again some are fibrous, for of this character is the wood of the silver-fir and the date-palm; while some are not fibrous,^[11] as in the fig. In like manner some are full of 'veins,' others veinless. Further in shrubby plants and undershrubs and in woody plants^[12] in general one might find other differences: thus the reed is jointed, while the bramble and Christ's thorn have thorns on the wood. Bulrush and some of the marsh or pond plants are in like manner^[13] without joints and smooth, like the rush; and the stem of galingale and sedge has a certain smoothness beyond those just mentioned; and still more perhaps has that of the mushroom.

1. i.e. those which divide plants into large classes (e.g. evergreen and deciduous).
2. i.e. taking account of differences in qualities, etc. See § 4, but the order in which the three kinds of 'differences' are discussed is not that which is here given; the second is taken first and resumed at 6. 1, the third begins at 5. 4, the first at 14. 4.
3. ταὐτὸ conj. Sch.; αὐτὸ UMVPAld.
4. τραχυφλοιότερα conj. H. from G; παχυφ. UMAld. cf. Plin. 16. 126.
5. ῥηξίφλοια conj. St.; ῥιζίφοια (?) U; ῥιζίφλοια P.; ῥιζόφλοια P₂Ald. cf. 4. 15. 2, Plin. l.c.
6. μηλέα conj. H. Steph., etc.; νηλεία UMPAld.; νήλεια P₂V. cf. Plin. l.c.
7. G appears to have read λίνου οπάρτου.
8. cf. 5. 1. 6.
9. ῥάμνου conj. W.; θάμνου P₂; βαλάνου Ald.H.
10. κωνείου conj. Sch.; κωνίου Ald.U (corrected to κωνείου). cf. 7. 6. 4.
11. δὲ ἂινα conj. Sen. from G.: δὲ βῐνα U; δὲ μανά Ald.; δὲ. . .να M.
12. ὑλήματα conj. Sch. (a general term including shrubs, under-shrubs, etc. cf. 1. 6.7; 1. 10. 6); κλήματα, Ald.
13. ὁμοίως, sense doubtful; ὁμωνύμων conj. W.

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