Enquiry into Plants/Volume 1/Chapter 22

by Theophrastus

Of spontaneous changes in the character of trees, and of certain marvels.

III. ^[1]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^[2] 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 may change into a black one, and conversely; and similar changes occur in^[3] the vine.

Now these changes they interpret as miraculous and contrary to nature; but they do not even feel any surprise at the ordinary changes, for instance, when the 'smoky' vine,^[4] as it is called, produces alike white grapes instead of black or black grapes instead of white. Of such changes the soothsayers take no account, any more than they do of those instances in which the soil produces a natural change, as was said^[5] of the pomegranate in Egypt. But it is surprising when such a change occurs in our own country, because there are only one or two instances and these separated by wide intervals of time. However, if such changes occur, it is natural^[6] that the variation should be rather in the fruit than in the tree as a whole. In fact the following irregularity also occurs in fruits; a fig-tree has been known to produce its figs from behind the leaves,^[7] pomegranate and vines from the stem, while the vine has been known to bear fruit without leaves. The olive again has been known to lose its leaves and yet produce its fruit; this is said to have happened to Thettalos, son of Pisistratus. This may be due to inclement weather; and some changes, which seem to be abnormal, but are not really so, are due to other accidental causes;^[8] for instance, there was an olive that, after being completely burnt down, sprang up again entire, the tree and all its branches. And in Boeotia an olive whose young shoots^[9] had been eaten off by locusts grew again: in this case however^[10] the shoots had, so to speak, only been shed. But after all such phenomena are perhaps far from strange, since the cause in each case is obvious; rather is it strange that trees should bear fruit not at the places where it naturally forms, or else fruit which does not belong to the character^[11] of the tree. And most surprising of all is it when,^[12] as has been said,^[13] there is a change in the entire character of the tree. Such are the changes which occur in trees.

 

1. Plin. 17. 242.
2. i.e. all the fruit are now acid instead of sweet, or the reverse. Sch. brackets ἐξ ὀξείας … ὀξεῖαν.
3. ἐπὶ conj. Sch.; ἐξ Ald.H.
4. c.f. C.P. 5. 3. 1 and 2; Arist. de gen. an. 4. 4; Heysch. s.v. καπνίας; Schol. ad Ar. Vesp. 141.
5. 2. 2. 7.
6. εἰκὸς has perhaps dropped out. Sch.
7. θρίων conj. R. Const., cf. C.P. 5. 1. 7 and 8; 5. 2. 2; ἐρινεῶν P₂ Ald. cf. also Athen. 3. 11.
8. cf. Hdt. 8. 55; Plin. 17. 241.
9. ἐρνῶν conj. Sch,; ἔργων P₂Ald.; κλάδων mU.
10. i.e. the portent was not so great as in the other case quoted, as the tree itself had not been destroyed.
11. οἰκείους• καὶ I conj.; οἰκειῦται UMC; οἰκείως Ald.H.; ἐοικότας conj. W.
12. εἰ ins. Sch.
13. 2. 3. 1.

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