ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, I. x. 2-5 



may observe this in trees whose leaves are crowded 

 and opposite,! such as those of myrtle. 



Some think that the nourishment too is conveyed to 

 the upper surface through the under surface, because 

 this surface always contains moisture and is downy, 

 but they are mistaken. It may be that this is not 

 due to the trees' special chai-acter, but to their not 

 getting an equal amount of sunshine, though the 

 nourishment conveyed through the veins or fibres 

 is the same in both cases. That it should be con- 

 veyed from one side to the other ^ is improbable, 

 when there are no passages for it nor thickness for it 

 to pass through.^ However it belongs to another 

 part of the enquiry to discuss the means by which 

 nourishment is conveyed. 



Again there are various other differences between 

 leaves ; some trees are broad-leaved, as vine fig and 

 plane, some narrow-leaved, as olive pomegranate 

 myrtle. Some have, as it were, spinous'* leaves, 

 as fir Aleppo pine prickly cedar ; some, as it were, 

 fleshy leaves ; and this is because their leaves are of 

 fleshv substance, as cypress tamarisk apple,^ among 

 under-shrubs kneoros and stoibe, and among herba- 

 ceous plants house-leek and hulwort. " This plant 

 is good against moth in clothes. For the leaves of 

 beet and cabbage are fleshy in another way, as are 

 those of the various plants called rue ; for their fleshy 

 character is seen in the flat instead of in the round.^ 

 Among shrubby plants the tamarisk^ has fleshy 



* Prolmbly a gloss. 



^ Or ' solid,' sttch leaves being regarded as having, so to 

 speak, three, and not two dimensions. arpofyvXos = ' thick- 

 set ' in Arist. H.A. 9. 44. 



* Hvpimj probably corrupt ; /i. was mentionerl just above, 

 among trtts ; iptiKii conj. Dalec. 



71 



