ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, II. vm. 3-4 



where there is most dust. And they say that 

 hulwort also, when it fruits freely, 1 and the 'gall- 

 bags ' 2 of the elm are used for caprification. For 

 certain little creatures are engendered in these also. 

 When the knips is found in figs, it eats the gall-insects. 

 It is to prevent this, it is said, that they nail up 

 the crabs ; for the knips then turns its attention to 

 these. Such are the ways of assisting the fig- 

 trees. 



With dates it is helpful to bring the male to the 

 female ; for it is the male which causes the fruit to 

 persist and ripen, and this process some call, by 

 analogy, 'the use of the wild fruit.' 3 The process 

 is thus performed : when the male palm is in flower, 

 they at once cut off the spathe on which the flower 

 is, just as it is, and shake the bloom with the flower 

 and the dust over the fruit of the female, and, if this 

 is done to it, it retains the fruit and does not shed 

 it. In the case both of the fig and of the date it 

 appears that the ' male ' renders aid to the ' female,' 

 for the fruit-bearing tree is called ' female' 

 but while in the latter case there is a union of the 

 two sexes, in the former the result is brought about 

 somewhat differently. 



same thing is referred to as rb fltAaKwSes TOVTO, where TOVTO 

 = 'the well-known '; cf. also 9. 1. 2, where Sch. restores 

 KwpvKOus ; cf. Pall. 4. 10. 28. Kviraipovs (?) U ; Kvirtpovs MV; 

 Kinrepiv Aid. ; Kwndpovs COllj. W. 



3 b\vvdd(fiif, from <j\w6os, a kind of wild fig, as epivdfciv, 

 from ipiv6s, the wild fig used for caprification. cf. G.P. 

 3. 18. 1. 



155 



