Page:Enquiry into plants (Volume 1).pdf/57

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, I. ii. 6-iii. i
 

again call only the inner part of the core itself the 'heart,' while others distinguish this as the 'marrow.'

Here then we have a fairly complete list of the 'parts,' and those last named are composed of the first 'parts'; wood is made of fibre and sap, and in some cases of flesh also; for the flesh hardens and turns to wood, for instance in palms ferula and in other plants in which a turning to wood takes place, as in the roots of radishes. Core is made of moisture and flesh: bark in some cases of all three constituents, as in the oak black poplar and pear; while the bark of the vine is made of sap and fibre, and that of the cork-oak[1] of flesh and sap. Moreover out of these constituents are made the most important parts,[2] those which I mentioned first, and which may be called 'members': however not all of them are made of the same constituents, nor in the same proportion, but the constituents are combined in various ways.

Having now, we may say, taken all the parts, we must endeavour to give the differences between them and the essential characters of trees and plants taken as wholes.

Definitions of the various classes into which plants may be divided.

III. Now since our study becomes more illuminating[3] if we distinguish different kinds,[4] it is well to follow this plan where it is possible. The first and most important classes, those which comprise all or nearly all[5] plants, are tree, shrub, under-shrub, herb.

A tree is a thing which springs from the root with

  1. φελλοῦ conj. H.; φύλλον UVP2P3Ald.; φυλλοῦ M.
  2. i.e. root, stem, branch, twig: cf. 1. 1. 9.
  3. σαφεστέραν conj. W.; σαφέστερον Ald.
  4. εἴδη here=γένη; cf. 6. 1. 2. n.
  5. πάντ᾽ ἢ conj. Sch. after G; πάντη UMVAld.
23