ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, III. ii. 1-2 



or flowerless ; for certain distinctions apply to all trees 

 alike, whether cultivated or wild. To wild trees, as 

 compared with cultivated ones, belong the special 

 properties of fruiting late, of greater vigour, of 

 abundance of fruit, produced if not matured ; for they 

 ripen their fruit later, and in general their time of 

 flowering and making growth is later ; also they are 

 more vigorous in growth, and so, though they produce 

 more fruit, they ripen it less ; if ^ this is not universally 

 true, at least it holds good of the wild olive and pear 

 as compared with the cultivated forms of these trees. 

 This is generally true with few exceptions, as in the 

 cornelian cherry and sorb ; for the wnld forms of these, 

 they say, ripen their fruit better, and it is sweeter 

 than in the cultivated forms. ^ And the rule also does 

 not hold good of anvthing which does not admit of 

 cultivation, whether it be a tree or one of the smaller 

 plants, as silphium caper and, among leguminous 

 plants, the lupin ; these one might say are specially 

 wild in their character. For, as with animals which 

 do not submit to domestication, so a plant which does 

 not submit to cultivation may be called wild in its 

 essential character. However Hippon ' declares that 

 of every plant there exists both a cultivated and a 

 wild form, and that ' cultivated ' simply means * that 

 the plant has received attention, while ' wild ' means 

 that it has not ; but though he is partly right, he is 

 partly wrong. It is true that any plant deteriorates 

 by neglect and so becomes wild ; but it is not true 

 that every plant may be improved by attention,* as 

 has been said. VVTierefore ** we must make our 

 distinction and call some things wild, others culti- 



* i.e. and so become ' cultivated.' 

 « ft 8^ MSS. ; ««b conj. Sch. from G. 



167 



