ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, IV. iv. 2-4 



eaten, but it is very fragrant, as also is the leaf of the 

 tree. And if the ' apple ' is placed among clothes, 

 it keeps them from being moth-eaten. It is also 

 useful when one 1 has drunk deadly poison ; for being 

 given in wine it upsets the stomach and brings up the 

 poison ; also for producing sweetness of breath ; 2 

 for, if one boils the inner part of the ' apple ' in a 

 sauce, or squeezes it into the mouth in some other 

 medium, and then inhales it, i't makes the breath 

 sweet. The seed is taken from the fruit and sown 

 in spring in carefully tilled beds, and is then watered 

 every fourth or fifth day. And, when it is growing 

 vigorously, 3 it is transplanted, also in spring, to a 

 soft well-watered place, where the soil is not too 

 fine ; for such places it loves. And it bears its ' apples ' 

 at all seasons ; for when some have been gathered, 

 the flower of others is on the tree and it is ripening 

 others. Of the flowers, as we have said, 4 those 

 which have, as it were, a distaff 5 projecting in the 

 middle are fertile, while those that have it not are 

 infertile. It is also sown, like date-palms, in pots 6 

 with a hole in them. This tree, as has been said, 

 grows in Persia and Media. 



7 The Indian land has its so-called ' fig-tree ' 

 (banyan), which drops its roots from its branches 

 every year, as has been said above 8 ; and it drops 

 them, not from the new branches, but from those 

 of last year or even from older ones ; these take 

 hold of the earth and make, as it were, a fence 

 about the tree, so that it becomes like a tent, in 



4 1. 13. 4. i.e. the pistil. 



6 Plin. 12. 16, fictilibus in vasis, dato per cavernas radicibus 

 spiramento : the object, as Plin. explains, was to export it 

 for medical use. 



7 Plin. 12. 22 and 23. 8 1. 7. 3. 



3'3 



