a good many of its branches untouched, since it is by nature like a shrub. Again neither the apple nor the pomegranate nor the pear would seem to be a tree of a single stem, nor indeed any of the trees which have side stems from the roots, but they acquire the character of a tree when the other stems are removed. However some trees men even leave with their numerous stems because of their slenderness, for instance, the pomegranate and the apple, and they leave the stems of the olive and the fig cut short.[1]
Exact classification impracticable: other possible bases of classification.
Indeed it might be suggested that we should classify in some cases simply by size, and in some eases by comparative robustness or length of life. For of under-shrubs and those of the pot-herb class some have only one stem and come as it were to have the character of a tree, such as cabbage[2] and rue: wherefore some call these 'tree-herbs'; and in fact all or most of the pot-herb class, when they have been long in the ground, acquire a sort of branches, and the whole plant comes to have a tree-like shape, though it is shorter lived than a tree.
For these reasons then, as we are saying, one must not make a too precise definition; we should make our definitions typical. For we must make our distinctions too on the same principle, as those between wild and cultivated plants, fruit-bearing and fruitless, flowering and flowerless, evergreen and deciduous. Thus the distinction between wild and cultivated seems to be due simply to cultivation, since, as Hippon[3] remarks, any plant may be either[4] wild or cultivated according as it receives or[5] does not receive attention.
- ↑ i.e. so that the tree comes to look like a shrub from the growth of fresh shoots after cutting. cf. 2. 6. 12; 2. 7. 2.
- ↑ ῥάφανος conj. Bod. from G; ῥαφανὶς Ald.
- ↑ cf. 3. 2. 2. The Ionian philosopher. See Zeller, Pre-Socratic Philosophy (Eng. trans.), l. 281 f.
- ↑ καὶ add. W.; so G.
- ↑ ἤ conj. Sch.; καὶ UAld.Cam.Bas.H.
