Page:Enquiry into plants (Volume 1).pdf/223

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, III. v. 3–5
 

is stronger if it is cut after the ripening of the fruit.

Now what has been said is peculiar to the above-mentioned trees.[1] [2]But the buddings which take place at the rising of the dog-star and at that of Arcturus after the spring budding are common to nearly all, though they may be most clearly seen in cultivated trees, and, among these, especially in fig vine pomegranate, and in general in all those that are luxuriant in growth or are growing in rich soil. Accordingly they say that the budding at the rising of Arcturus is most considerable in Thessaly and Macedonia[3]; for it also happens that the autumn in these countries is a fair and a long season; so that the mildness of the climate also contributes. Indeed it is for this reason, one may say, that in Egypt too the trees are always budding, or at least that the process is only suspended for quite a short time.

Now the facts as to the later buddings apply, as has been said, to all trees alike; but those which belong to the intervals after the first period of budding are peculiar to those mentioned above. Peculiar to some also is the growth of what are called 'winter buds,'[4] for instance in the above-mentioned trees; silver-fir fir and oak have them, and also lime hazel chestnut and Aleppo pine. These are found in the oak before the leaf-buds grow, when the spring season is just beginning. This growth consists of a sort of leaf-like formation,[5] which occurs between the first swelling of the leaf-buds and the time when they burst into leaf. In the sorb[6] it

  1. δένδρων R. Const,; καρπῶν Ald. H.
  2. cf. C.P. 1. 10. 6; 1. 12. 4; 1. 13. 3; 1. 13. 5; 1. 13. 10; Plin. 16. 96.
  3. cf. C.P. 1. 14. 11.
  4. cf. 5. 1. 4; Plin. 16. 30.
  5. ἐστι … φυλλικὴ: ἐστι conj. R. Const.; ὡσπερεὶ conj. Sch.; ἔτι δὲ ὥσπερ ἡ κύησις φυλακὴ U Ald. H.; φυλλικὴ mBas etc.
  6. τᾒ δ᾽ ὔῃ ἐστὶ conj. W. (cf. the description of ὔη, 3. 12. 8); τᾒ δ᾽ ἰδιότητι Ald.
189