plant in general,[1] and its coverings and its variations, and in particular, to define its essential nature and its colour, and the period of its duration, and the effects which are produced upon it. Plants have not fixed habits of mind 818b and the power of action like that possessed by animals;[2] and if we compare the parts of an animal with those of a plant, our discussion will be a long one, and we shall not avoid considerable differences of opinion in naming the parts of plants. For a part of a thing is of its own kind and of its own particular substance, and, when it is once produced, any special part[3] will remain in its original condition, unless it departs from it owing to some long continued infirmity. Flowers, fruits, and leaves will, in some cases, be produced annually, in others they are perennial;[4] they have not the same permanence as the bark and body of a plant (though even this is shed under the influence of burning heat, being stripped off by the desert wind[5]). …[6] This does not happen in plants; for various undetermined parts of plants are often shed (like hair in the case of man and claws in the case of animals), and in their stead other parts grow either where the lost parts were, or elsewhere in some other place. It is clear from this that it is not determined whether the parts of a plant are really parts or not. It is wrong for us to say that those things with which a plant[7] grows and by which it reaches completion are not parts of it; but the leaves and everything that is found in a plant[8] are parts of that plant, although they are not determined and are gradually shed; for the antlers of a stag and the hair of
- ↑ Emphasis must be put upon the numbers of plantarum and plantae; the sense is that it is easy to name the various parts of individual plants, but difficult to lay down definitions which will apply to the plant καθόλου. Meyer compares Theophr. l. c.. 1, 10 ὅλως πολύχουν τὸ φυτὸν καὶ ποικίλον, καὶ afirbv (iTrtiv Ka66ov.
- ↑ Cf. Theophr. l. c. 1, 1 (
Greek characters)
- ↑ 'Speciem pro parte specali' (Meyer).
- ↑ These words can only apply to folia; the author is thinking of evergreens.
- ↑ The words a re and causam are manifestly corrupt. Meyer ingeniously suggests that re is the Arabic raie (a hot desert wind), and that causam is a corruption of cauma.
- ↑ Meyer supposes a lacuna here, otherwise there is nothing for istud in the next sentence to refer to.
- ↑ Omitting animal which destroys the sense.
- ↑ Reading illa with G. II.
