ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, II. ii. 4-6 



white, and conversely. Again the seed of an excel- 

 lent vine produces a degenerate result, which is 

 often of quite a diiferent kind ; and at times this is 

 not a cultivated kind at all, but a wild one of such a 

 character that it does not ripen its fruit ; with others 

 again the result is that the seedlings do not even 

 mature fruit, but only get as far as flowering. 



Again the stones of the olive give ^ a wild olive, 

 and the seeds of a sweet pomegranate " give a 

 degenerate kind, while the stoneless kind gives a 

 hard sort and often an acid fruit. So also is it with 

 seedlings of pears and apples ; pears give a poor sort 

 of wild pears, apples produce an inferior kind which is 

 acid instead of sweet ; quince produces wild quince.^ 

 Almond again raised from seed is inferior in taste and 

 in being hard instead of soft ; and this is why men * 

 bid us graft on to the almond, even when it is fully 

 grown, or, failing that, frequently plant the offsets. 



The oak also deteriorates from seed ; at least 

 many persons having raised trees from acorns of the 

 oak at Pyrrha* could not produce one like the 

 parent tree. On the other hand they say that bay 

 and myrtle sometimes improve by seeding, though 

 usually they degenerate and do not even keep their 

 colour, but red fruit gives black — as happened with 

 the tree in Antandros ; and frequently seed of a 

 ' female ' cypress produces a * male ' tree. The date- 

 palm seems to be about the most constant of these 

 trees, when raised from seed, and also the ' cone- 

 bearing pine ' ^ (stone-pine) and the ' lice-bearing 

 pine.' ^ So much for degeneration in cultivated trees; 

 among wild kinds it is plain that more in proportion 



' Plin. 16. 49. The 'lice' are the seeds which were eaten. 

 cj. Hdt. 4. 109, (pdfiporpayfovat ; Theocr. 5. 49. 



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 vol.. I. I 



