Page:Enquiry into plants (Volume 1).pdf/227

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ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, III. vi. 1–3
 

(bird-cherry) Valonia oak Phoenician cedar maple hop-hornbeam zygia manna-ash alder Aleppo pine andrachne cornelian cherry box wild pear. But silver-fir fir and Aleppo pine bear fruit from the very first, whatever size they have attained.

While the growth and budding of most trees are irregular as regards the position in which the buds appear,[1] the growth and budding of the silver-fir follow a regular rule, and its development afterwards is also in a regular sequence. For, when the trunk first divides, then again from the divided trunk the second division[2] takes place in like manner, and so the tree goes on with each fresh formation of buds. In other trees not even the knots are opposite to one another, except in some few cases, as wild olive and others.[3] Here too we find a difference in the manner of growth which belongs to all trees alike, both cultivated and wild: in some cases the growth is from the top of the shoots and also from the side=buds,[4] as in pear pomegranate fig myrtle and the majority of trees, one may say: in some cases the growth is not from the top, but only from the side-buds, and the already existing part is pushed out[5], further, as is the whole trunk with the upper branches. This occurs in the walnut and in the filbert as well as in other trees. In all such trees the buds end in a single leaf[6]; wherefore it is reasonable that they should not make fresh buds and growth from this point, as they have no point of departure. (To a certain extent the growth of corn is similar; for it

  1. κατὰ … βλαστῶν conj. W.; κατὰ τοὺς τρόπους (corrected to τόπους) καὶ βλαστούς U; MVP insert τοὺς before βλαστούς
  2. ἐκ τοῦ … πλαγίων: ? ἐκ τοῦ ἄκρου καὶ ἐκ τῶν πλαγίων βλαστῶν.cf. 3. 5. 1.
  3. ἐκείνου … κατὰ conj. W.; ἐκείνου ἡ ἑτέρα σχίζεται τὰ ἴσα καὶ UAld.
  4. ἄλλων: ? ἐλάας W.; I suggest ἄλλων ἐλαῶν.
  5. i.e. grows without dividing. cf. Plin. 16. 100. (of different trees).
  6. φύλλον perhaps conceals some other word.
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