Enquiry into Plants/Volume 1/Chapter 35

by Theophrastus

Of the effects of cutting down the whole or part of a tree.

VII. Almost all trees shoot from the side if the trunk is cut down, unless the roots have previously been injured; but fir and silver-fir wither away^[1] completely from the roots within the year, if merely the top has been cut off. And there is a peculiar thing about the silver-fir; when it is topped or broken off short by wind or some other cause affecting the smooth part of the trunk—for up to a certain height the trunk is smooth knotless and plain^[2] (and so suitable for making a ship's mast^[3]), a certain amount of new growth forms round it, which does not however grow much vertically; and this is called by some amphauxis^[4] and by others amphiphya^[4]; it is black in colour and exceedingly hard, and the Arcadians make their mixing-bowls out of it; the thickness is in proportion^[5] to the tree, according as that is more or less vigorous and sappy, or again according to its thickness. There^[6] is this peculiarity too in the silver-fir in the same connexion; when, after taking off all the branches, one cuts off the top, it soon dies; yet, when one takes off the lower parts, those about the smooth portion of the trunk, what is left survives, and it is on this part that the amphauxis forms. And plainly the reason why the tree survives is that it is sappy and green because it has no side-growths.^[7] Now this is peculiar to the silver-fir.

1. cf. Hdt. 6. 37, and the proverb πίτνος τρόπον ἐκτρίβεσθαι.
2. ὅμαλον conj. Scal.; ὅμοιον Ald.
3. ἱκανὸν ἵστῳ πλοίου conj. W.; ἢ καὶ ἡλίκον πλεῖον Ald.; so UH, but with πλοῖον.
4. Two words meaning 'growth about,' i.e. callus.
5. οἷον ἇν conj. W.; οἷον ἐὰν Ald.; ὅσον ἂν conj. Scal.
6. Plin. 16. 123.
7. i.e. and so does not, like other trees under like treatment, puts its strength into these.cf. C.P. 5. 17. 4.

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