Enquiry into Plants, Volume I: Books 1–5

Enquiry into Plants and De Causis Plantarum by Theophrastus (c. 370 c. 285 BCE) are a counterpart to Aristotle s zoological work and the most important botanical work of antiquity now extant. In the former Theophrastus classifies and describes. His On Odours and Weather Signs are minor treatises. Theophrastus of Eresus in Lesbos, born about 370 BCE, is the author of the most important botanical works that have survived from classical antiquity. He was in turn student, collaborator, and successor of Aristotle. Like his predecessor he was interested in all aspects of human knowledge and experience, especially natural science. His writings on plants form a counterpart to Aristotle’s zoological works. In the Enquiry into Plants, Theophrastus classifies and describes varieties—covering trees, plants of particular regions, shrubs, herbaceous plants, and cereals; in the last of the nine books he focuses on plant juices and medicinal properties of herbs. Enquiry into Plants Book 1: Of the Parts of Plants and Their Composition; Of Classification Introductory: How plants are to be classified; difficulty of defining what are the essential ‘parts’ of a plant, especially if plants are assumed to correspond to animals The essential parts of plants, and the materials of which they are made Definitions of the various classes into which plants may be divided Exact classification impracticable: other possible bases of classification Differences as to appearance and habitat Characteristic differences in the parts of plants, whether general, special, or seen in qualities and properties Differences as to qualities and properties Further special differences Differences in root Of trees (principally) and their characteristic special differences: as to knots As to habit As to shedding of leaves Differences in leaves Composition of the various parts of a plant Differences in seeds Differences in taste Differences in flowers Differences in fruits General differences (affecting the whole plant) Book 2: Of Propagation, Especially of Trees Of the ways in which trees and plants originate. Instances of degeneration from seed Effects of situation, climate, tendance Of spontaneous changes in the character of trees, and of certain marvels Of spontaneous and other changes in other plants Of methods of propagation, with notes on cultivation Of the propagation of the date-palm; of palms in general Further notes on the propagation of trees Of the cultivation of trees Of remedies for the shedding of the fruit: caprification Book 3: Of Wild Tubes Of the ways in which wild trees originate Of the differences between wild and cultivated trees Of mountain trees: of the differences found in wild trees Of the times of budding and fruiting of wild, as compared with cultivated, trees Of the seasons of budding Of the comparative rate of growth in trees, and of the length of their roots Of the effects of cutting down the whole or part of a tree Of other things borne by trees besides their leaves flowers and fruit Of ‘male’ and ‘female’ in trees: the oak as an example of this and other differences Of the differences in firs Of beech, yew, hop-hornbeam, lime Of maple and ash Of cornelian cherry, cornel, ‘cedars,’ medlar, thorns, sorb Of bird-cherry, elder, willow Of elm, poplars, alder, [semyda, bladder-senna] Of filbert, terebinth, box, krataigos Of certain other oaks, arbutus, andrachne, wig-tree Of cork-oak, kolatea, koloitia, and of certain other trees peculiar to particular localities Of the differences in various shrubs—buckthorn, withy, Christ’s thorn, bramble, sumach, ivy, smilax, [spindle-tree] Book 4: Of the Trees and Plants Special to Particular Districts and Positions Of the importance of position and climate Of the trees special to Egypt, and of the carob Of the trees and shrubs special to Libya Of the trees and herbs special to Asia Of the plants special to northern regions Of the aquatic plants of the Mediterranean Of the aquatic plants of the ‘outer sea’ (i.e. Atlantic, Persian Gulf, etc.) Of the plants of rivers, marshes, and lakes, especially in Egypt Of the plants peculiar to the lake of Orchomenos (Lake Copaïs), especially its reeds, and of reeds in general Of rushes Of the length or shortness of the life of plants, and the causes Of diseases and injuries done by weather conditions Of the effects on trees of removing bark, head, heartwood, roots, etc.; of various causes...