ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, II. viii. 3-4 



where there is most dust. And they say that 

 huhvort alsOj when it fruits freely,^ and the ' gall- 

 bags ' 2 of the elm are used for caprification. For 

 certain little creatures are engendered in these also. 

 When the knips is found in figSj it eats the gall-insects. 

 It is to prevent this, it is said, that they nail up 

 the crabs ; for the k-nips then turns its attention to 

 these. Such are the ways of assisting the fig- 



trees. 



With dates it is helpful to bring the male to the 

 female ; for it is the male which causes the fruit to 

 j)ersist and ripen, and this process some call, by 

 analogy, 'the use of the wild fruit.' ^ The process 

 is thus performed : when the male palm is in floAver, 

 they at once cut off the spathe on which the flower 

 is, just as it is, and shake the bloom with the flower 

 and the dust over the fruit of the female, and, if this 

 is done to it, it retains the fruit and does not shed 

 it. In the case both of the fig and of the date it 

 appears that the ' male ' renders aid to the ' female,' 

 — for the fruit-bearing tree is called ' female ' — 

 but while in the latter case there is a union of the 

 two sexes, in the former the result is brought about 

 somewhat differently. 



same thing is referred to as t^ OvXaKuSes rovro, where rovro 

 ■= ' the well-kno^vn ' ; cf. also 9. 1 . 2, where Sch. restores 

 raipvKOvs ; cf. Pall. 4. 10. 28. Kxnraipovs (?) U ; Kvirtpovs MV; 

 KVirfptv Aid. ; KVTTapovs COllj. W. 



2 b\vv6d.Ceiv, from oKvvdos, a kind of wild fig, as tpivi^eiv, 

 from ipiv6s, the wild fig used for caprification. cf. C.P. 

 o. 18. 1. 



55 



