ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, I. x. 6-8 



as leaves, they would be entirely leafless, and some 

 would have spines but no leaves at all, as asparagus. 



1 Again there is the difference that some leaves 

 have no leaf-stalk, as those of squill and purse- 

 tassels, while others have a leaf-stalk. And some 

 of the latter have a long leaf-stalk, as vine 

 and ivy, some, as olive, a short one which grows, as 

 it were, into the stem and is not simply attached to 

 it, as it is in 2 plane and vine. Another difference is 

 that the leaves do not in all cases grow from the 

 same part, but, whereas in most trees they grow from 

 the branches, in some they grow also from the twigs, 

 and in the oak from the stem as well ; in most 

 pot-herbs they grow directly from the root, as in 

 onion garlic chicory, and also in asphodel squill 

 purse-tassels Barbary-nut, and generally in plants 

 of the same class as purse-tassels ; and in these 

 not merely the original growth but the whole 

 stalk is leafless. In some, when the stalk is pro- 

 duced, the leaves may be expected to grow, 3 as in 

 lettuce basil celery, and in like manner in cereals. 

 In some of these the stalk presently becomes spinous, 

 as in lettuce and the whole class of plants with 

 spinous leaves, and still more in shrubby plants, as 

 bramble and Christ's thorn. 



4 Another difference which is found in all trees 

 alike and in other plants as well is that some have 

 many, some few leaves. And in general those that 

 have flat leaves 5 have them in a regular series, as 

 myrtle, while in other instances the leaves are in no 

 particular order, but set at random, as in most other 



4 Plin. 16. 92. 



5 ir\a.Ti>(f)v\\a UVP ; iro\v(pv\\a conj. W. ; but irAaruTTjj is 

 one of the ' differences ' given in the 'summary below. 



75 



