BOOK XVII. xxAvii. 239-xAxviii. 242 



can be inferred to possess a sense of smell, and to be 

 affected by odours in a marvellous degree, and con- 

 sequently when an evil-smelling plant is near it to 

 turn away and withdraw, and to avoid an unfriendly 

 tang. This supphed Androcydes with an antidote 

 against intoxication, for which he recommended chew- 

 ing a radish. The vine also abhors cabbage and all 

 sorts of garden vegetables, as well as hazel, and these 

 unless a long way off make it aiUng and sickly ; 

 indeed nitre and alum and warm sea-water and the 

 pods of beans or bitter vetch are to a vine the dircst 

 poisons. 



XXXVni. Among the maladies of trees it is in rortentous 

 place to speak also of prodigies. We find that figs f;i~"'^ 

 have grown underneath the leaves of the tree, a 

 vine and a pomegranate have borne fruit on their 

 trunk, not on a shoot or a branch, a vine has borne 

 grapes without having any leaves, and also olives 

 have lost their leaves while the fruit remained on the 

 tree. There are also marvels connected with acci- 

 dent : an olive has come to Hfe again after being 

 completely burnt up, also tig-trees in Boeotia gnawed 

 down by locusts have budded afresh. Trees also 

 change their colour and turn from black to white, 

 not always with portentous meaning, but chiefly those 

 that grow from seed ; and the white poplar turns 

 into a black jjoplar. Some people also think that the 

 ser\ice-tree goes barren if transplanted to warmer 

 locaUties. But it is a portent when sour fruits grow 

 on sweet fruit-trees and sweet on sour, and figs on a 

 wild fig-tree or the contrary, and it is a serious mani- 

 festation when trees turn into other trees of an 

 inferior kind, from an oUve into a wild oUve or from 

 a white grape or green fig into a black grape or a 



167 



