126 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



plants which grow nowhere but in the sea; small ones in our sea 

 (i. e., the Mediterranean), larger ones in the Red Sea. Others 

 affect only marshes or other very wet places. Some can not live 

 in very wet ground, but restrict themselves to dry ground. Certain 

 others are littoral only. A few trees thrive in either moist land 

 or dry; such are the myrtle, alder, and willow. " ^ In another place, 

 having wild trees and the diversity of them under consideration, 

 he affirms that they differ according to the different nature of the 

 localities in which they grow, " There are lands that are over- 

 flowed by water, there are marshes, and there is dry ground ; there 

 are rocky places and smooth pasture lands and harder soils, besides 

 other diversities. There are depressions in the landscape where 

 all is tranquil, and there are elevated and wind-swept exposures; 

 which varied conditions tend to the production of many different 

 things. " 2 Hereupon follows a considerable catalogue of trees 

 which in Macedonia he says occur nowhere but in the mountain 

 districts: fir, wild pine, spruce, holly, linden, hornbeam, beech, 

 box, arbutus, juniper, yew, wild fig, alaternus, phillyrea, walnut, 

 chestnut and holly-leaved oak. Then there is given a list of such 

 as are common to mountains and lowlands: tamarix, elm, poplar, 

 willow, cornel, alder, oak (Q. rohur), wild pear, wild apple, privet, 

 hop-hornbeam, ash, hawthorn. As to these denizens of both high- 

 land and plain he says that "in general they are of larger dimensions 

 and more comely form on the plains, but of better timber and 

 better fruit in the mountains. To this rule the wild pear and 

 wild apple are exceptions, both being of better timber and better 

 quality of fruit on the lowlands ; for in the mountains the trees are 

 gnarled and thorny. Even as to the peculiarly montane sorts 

 of trees, those inhabiting the lower valleys are both the largest 

 and the most copious; and on the highest summits everything is 

 in its most stunted condition, .excepting such as by nature require 

 the cold."-' 



Reminding ourselves of this, that Theophrastus treats mainly 

 of field and garden plants, giving much less space to the unculti- 

 vated, it becomes particularly noteworthy that in one place eight 

 successive chapters are given up to locating and describing aquatic 

 and other hydrophilous growths ;4 all of them, of course, wild plants. 

 Without any formality of naming the distinctions, yet in practice 



' Hist., Book i, ch. 7. 

 ' Ibid., iii, ch. 3. 

 ^ Ibid., iii, ch. 4. 

 * Ibid., iv, chs. 7-14. 



