ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, I. vm. 3-5 



as those of the wild olive, while others are set at 

 random. Again some trees have double knots, some 

 treble,^ some more at the same point ; some have as 

 many as five. - In the silver-fir both the knots and 

 the smaller branches ^ are set at right angles, as if 

 they were stuck in, but in other trees they are not 

 so. And that is why the silver-fir is such a strong 

 tree.* Most peculiar ^ are the knots of the apple, for 

 they are like the faces of wild animals ; there is one 

 large knot, and a number of small ones round it. 

 Again some knots are blind,^ others productive ; by 

 ' blind ' I mean those from which there is no growth. 

 These come to be so either by nature or by mutilation, 

 according as either the knot' is not free and so the 

 shoot does not make its way out, or, a bough having 

 been cut off, the place is mutilated, for example by 

 burning. Such knots occur more commonly in the 

 thicker boughs, and in some cases in the stem also. 

 And in general, wherever one chops or cuts part of 

 the stem or bough, a knot is formed, as though one 

 thing were made thereby into two and a fresh 

 growing point produced, the cause being the mutila- 

 tion or some other such reason ; for the effect of such 

 a blow cannot of course be ascribed to nature. 



Again in all trees the branches always seem to 

 have more knots, because the intermediate parts ^ 

 have not yet developed, just as the newly formed 

 branches of the fig are the roughest,'^ and in the 

 vine the highest ^"^ shoots. ^^ (For to the knot in other 



' i.e. the internodes ; till the branch is fully grown its 

 knots are closer together, and so seem more numerous : ,u^ir« 

 rava fifffov irpoffyiv^rjcTdai COnj. Sch. ; fjL-h-ru rava fjitaov irpoaKV- 

 Cridai U ; /itjt' clvcl aiffov irpoaicvCf^ffdai MAld. ; fi^tror' avdfifffoy 

 Tpoarfv^TJffdai P,. * i.e. have most knots. 



I*' i.e. youngest. " Plin. 16. 1-25. 



59 



