has shallow roots and few of them[1]; but manna-ash has more and they are thickly matted and run deep; Phoenician cedar and prickly cedar, they say,have shallow roots, those of alder are slender and 'plain,'[2] as also are those of beech; for this too has few roots, and they are near the surface. Sorb, they say, has its roots near the surface, but they are strong and thick and hard to kill, though not very numerous.Such are the trees which are or are not deep-rooting.
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[3] 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[4] (and so suitable for making a ship's mast[5]), a certain amount of new growth forms round it, which does not however grow much vertically; and this is called by some amphauxis[6] and by others amphiphya[6]; it is black in colour and exceedingly hard, and the Arcadians make their mixing-bowls out of it; the thickness is in proportion[7] to the tree, according as that is more or less vigorous and sappy, or again according to its thickness. There[8] is this peculiarity too in the silver-fir in the same connexion;
- ↑ σφ. καὶ ὀλίγας conj. W.; σφ. κατ᾽ ὀλίγον UMV Ald.
- ↑ i.e. not very fibrous.
- ↑ cf. Hdt. 6. 37, and the proverb πίτνος τρόπον ἐκτρίβεσθαι.
- ↑ ὅμαλον conj. Scal.; ὅμοιον Ald.
- ↑ ἱκανὸν ἵστῳ πλοίου conj. W.; ἢ καὶ ἡλίκον πλεῖον Ald.; so UH, but with πλοῖον.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Two words meaning 'growth about,' i.e. callus.
- ↑ οἷον ἇν conj. W.; οἷον ἐὰν Ald.; ὅσον ἂν conj. Scal.
- ↑ Plin. 16. 123.
