ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, I. i. 11–ii. 1
characters belong especially to trees, and our classification of characters belongs more particularly to these; and it is right to make these the standard in treating of the others.
Trees moreover shew forth fairly well the other features also which distinguish plants; for they exhibit differences in the number or fewness of these which they possess, as to the closeness or openness of their growth, as to their being single or divided, and in other like respects. Moreover each of the characters mentioned is not 'composed of like parts'[1]; by which I mean that though any given part of the root or trunk is composed of the same elements as the whole, yet the part so taken is not itself called 'trunk,' but 'a portion of a trunk.' The case is the same with the members of an animal's body; to wit, any part of the leg or arm is composed of the same elements as the whole, yet it does not bear the same name (as it does in the case of flesh or bone[2]); it has no special name. Nor again have subdivisions of any of those other organic parts[3] which are uniform special names, subdivisions of all such being nameless. But the subdivisions of those parts[4] which are compound have names, as have those of the foot, hand, and head, for instance, toe, finger, nose or eye. Such then are the largest[5] parts of the plant.
II. Again there are the things of which such parts are composed, namely, bark, wood and core (in the case of those plants which have it[6]), and these are all 'composed of like parts.' Further there are the things which are even prior to these, from which
- ↑ There is no exact English equivalent for δμοιομερές which denotes a whole composed of parts, each of which is, as it were, a miniature of the whole. cf. Arist. H.A. 1. 1.
- ↑ i.e. any part taken of flesh or bone may be called 'flesh' or 'bone.'
- ↑ e.g. bark; cf. 1. 2. 1.
- ↑ e.g. fruit.
- ↑ i.e. the 'compound' parts.
- ↑ ξύλον μήτρα conj. W. from G. μήτρα ξύλον MSS.; ξύλον, ὅσα conj. W.; ξύλα, ἢ ὅσα Ald.H.
