

ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, IV. xm. 1-2 



and we must consider which these are. Cultivated 

 plants plainly differ as to the length of their lives, 

 but, to speak generally, wild plants are longer-lived 

 than cultivated ones, both taken as classes, and also 

 when one compares l the wild and cultivated forms 

 of particular plants : thus the wild olive pear and fig 

 are longer-lived than the corresponding cultivated 

 trees ; for the wild forms of these are stronger and of 

 closer growth, and they do not produce such well- 

 developed fruit-pulp. 2 



To the long-lived character of some plants, both 

 cultivated and wild, witness is borne also by the tales 

 handed down in mythology, as of the olive at Athens, 3 

 the palm in Delos, 4 and the wild olive at Olympia, 

 from which the wreaths for the games are made ; 

 or again of the Valonia oaks at Ilium, planted on the 

 tomb of Ilos. Again some say that Agamemnon 

 planted the plane at Delphi, and the one at Kaphyai 5 

 in Arcadia. Now how this is may perhaps be 

 another story, but anyhow it is plain that there is a 

 great difference between trees in this respect ; the 

 kinds that have been mentioned, and many others 

 besides, are long-lived, while the following are ad- 

 mittedly short-lived pomegranate fig apple : and 

 among apples the ' spring ' sort and the ' sweet ' 

 apple are shorter-lived than the f sour' apple, even 

 as the ' stoneless ' pomegranate is shorter-lived than 

 the other kinds. Also some kinds of vine are short- 

 lived, especially those which bear much fruit ; and it 

 appears that trees which grow by water are shorter- 



* Under which Leto gave birth to Artemis and Apollo : cf. 

 Paus. 8. 48. 3; Cic. de Leg. 1. 1.; Plin. 16. 238. 

 6 Its planting is ascribed to Menelaus by Paus. 8. 23. 3. 



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