ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, III. i. 2-3 



in these two ways while some of them, such as 

 silver-fir fir and Aleppo pine grow only from seed. 

 All those that have seed and fruit, even if they grow 

 from a root, will grow from seed too ; for they say 

 that even those which, like elm and willow, appear 

 to have no fruit reproduce themselves. For proof 

 they give the fact that many such trees come up at a 

 distance from the roots of the original tree, what- 

 ever the position may be ; and further, they have 

 observed a thing which occasionally happens ; for in- 

 stance, when at Pheneos l in Arcadia the water which 

 had collected in the plain since the underground 

 channels 2 were blocked burst forth, where there 

 were willows growing near the inundated region, the 

 next year after it had dried up they say that willows 

 grew again ; and where there had been elms, elms 3 

 grew, even as, where there had been firs and silver- 

 firs, these trees reappeared as if the former trees 

 followed the example 4 of the latter. 



But the willow is said to shed its fruit early, before 

 it is completely matured and ripened ; and so the 

 poet 5 not unfittingly calls it "the willow which loses 

 its fruit." 



That the elm also reproduces itself the following 

 is taken to be a proof: when the fruit is carried by 

 the winds to neighbouring spots, they say that young 

 trees grow from it. Something similar to this 

 appears to be what happens in the case of certain 

 under-shrubs and herbaceous plants ; though they 

 have no visible seed, but some of them only a sort of 



* TrreXfas alQis irreXtas conj. St.; TrreXe'as avrl irf\fas U ; 

 iTTf\(as avrl irreXtas MV; Trre\fas alQis irreAeas P; irreAea 

 a50ty irreAeaj Aid. 



4 i.e. by growing from seed, as conifers normally do. 



Homer, Od. 10. 510; c/. Plin. 16. 110. 



161 



