attention required. In like manner plainly some wild things become cultivated and some cultivated things become wild; for the one kind of change is due to cultivation, the other to neglect:—however it might be said that this is not a change but a natural development towards a better or an inferior form;(for that it is not possible to make a wild olive pear or fig into a cultivated olive pear or fig). As to that indeed which is said to occur in the case of the wild olive, that if the tree is transplanted with its top-growth entirely cut off,[1] it produces 'coarse olives,'[2] this is no[3] very great change. However it can make no difference which way[4] one takes this.
Of spontaneous changes in the character of trees, and of certain marvels.
III. [5]Apart from these changes it is said that in such plants there is a spontaneous kind of change, sometimes of the fruit, sometimes of the tree itself as a whole, and soothsayers call such changes portents. For instance, an acid pomegranate, it is said, may produce sweet fruit, and conversely and again, in general, the tree itself sometimes undergoes a change, so that it becomes sweet[6] instead of acid, or the reverse happens. And the change to sweet is considered a worse portent. Again a wild fig may turn into a cultivated one, or the contrary change take place; and the latter is a worse portent. So again a cultivated olive may turn into a wild one, or conversely, but the latter change is rare. So again a white fig
- ↑ περικοπεὶς conj. W.; περισκοπτεῖς U; περικόπτης Ald.
- ↑ φαυλίας conj. Salm.; φαύλους U; θάλος Ald. cf. Plin. 16. 244. These olives produced little oil, but were valued for perfumery: see C.P 6. 8. 3 adn 5; de odor., 15.
- ↑ οὐ add. Salm,; om. MSS. (?) Ald. H.
- ↑ i.e. whether nature or man is said to cause the admitted change.
- ↑ Plin. 17. 242.
- ↑ i.e. all the fruit are now acid instead of sweet, or the reverse. Sch. brackets ἐξ ὀξείας … ὀξεῖαν.
