ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, IV. xm. 2-4 



lived than those which live in dry places : this is true 

 of willow abele elder and black poplar. 



Some trees, though they grow old and decay 

 quickly, shoot up again from the same stock, 1 as 

 bay apple pomegranate and most of the water- 

 loving trees. About these one might enquire 

 whether one should call the new growth the same 

 tree or a new one ; to take a similar case, if, after 

 cutting down the trunk, one should, as the husband- 

 men do, encourage 2 the new shoots to grow again, 

 or if 3 one should cut the tree right down to the 

 roots and burn the stump, 4 (for these things are 

 commonly done, and they also sometimes occur 

 naturally) ; are we then here too, to call the new 

 growth the same tree, or another one ? In so far as 

 it is always the parts of the tree which appear to 

 alternate their periods of growth and decay and also 

 the primings which they themselves thus make, so 

 far the new and the old growth might seem to be the 

 same tree ; for what difference can there be in the 

 one as compared with the other ? 5 On the other 

 hand, in so far as the trunk would seem to be above 

 all the essential part of the tree, which gives it its 

 special character, when this changes, one might 

 suppose that the .whole tree becomes something 

 different unless indeed one should lay down that to 

 have the same starting-point constitutes identity ; 

 whereas it often 6 happens that the roots too are 

 different and undergo a change, since some decay 

 and others grow afresh. 7 For if it be true, as some 



O * 



assert, that the reason why the vine is the longest 



8 i.e. how can the substitution of one set of 'parts' for 

 another destroy the identity of the tree as a whole? 



6 TroAAa/as cunj. Seh. from G ; iroAXa /caJ Ald.H. 



7 And so the ' starting-point ' too is not constant. 



337 



