Illustration of Botany

320 BCE Botany

The book of science

Tom Sharp

Theophrastus botany Illustration of Botany

Botany

Theophrastus, the father of botany, classified five hundred plants, and recognized their sexuality, their anatomies, and pathologies. He described seed germination, grafting, and crop cultivation. He focused on the practical uses and economic value of plants.

Enquiry into Plants

One difficulty is whether the seed or fruit is part of a plant, whereas for an animal it is not. Another difficulty is in distinguishing trees from shrubs, when under cultivation a shrub can grow into a tree. Another is whether to use locality to distinguish plants, when nature does not follow hard and fast rules. Another is whether bulbs, corms, and truffles should be called roots, when the nature of roots is to taper continuously to a point. Another is whether the essential nature of a wild plant is different, or its difference derives from not being cultivated. * Reports of barley growing from stalks of wheat or wheat growing from barley, Theophrastus knew to be fabulous, but he recognized as factual that under cultivation the characters of pomegranate and almond are changed and he reported of well-known plants that turn to stone and mushrooms close to the sea that are turned to stone by the sun. * If a tree does not bear fruit, split a root and stick a stone into the crack. If a fig tree does not bear figs, prune the roots, gash the stems, and sprinkle ashes about the trunk. If an almond tree does not bear, drive an iron peg in its trunk, replace it with an oak peg, and bury the iron peg. Gall insects are engendered by the seeds of the fig, but cure the fig tree by nailing crabs to its trunk. * Wild trees propagate from root, down, seed, or fruit. Anaxagoras says air contains seeds that rain carries to the earth. Kleidemos says elements that produce animals, when they are colder or less pure, produce plants. Diogenes says water decomposes in earth to produce seeds. Other philosophers say that plants result from spontaneous generation. But Theophrastus says all methods of propagation can be explained by the spread of root, down, seed, or fruit. * Whether both wild and cultivated varieties bear fruit, whether times of shedding or budding vary, how the shape and depth of rooting varies, whether any other than lime produce buds in winter, whether if the trunk is cut off or burnt down it dies or sends out new shoots, whether we should call new growth from the roots the same tree or a different tree, and which are long-lived and which short-lived are matters for further enquiry. * Different forms of the same tree, and different trees of the same form, whether wild and cultivated trees, male and female, are distinguished by sweetness or bitterness of fruit, type of gall, length of roots, rate of growth, timing and regularity of budding, structure of the cone, size, shape, color, and hardness of the acorn, strength of the wood, size and shape of the leaf, shape and height of the tree, its straightness and branching. * Some trees love wet and marshy ground, some dry. Some love exposed and sunny places, some shady. Some belong more to the mountains, some to the plains. Some trees grow on land and some in the ocean. * All mountains have peculiar trees and shrubs. Every river seems to bear some peculiar plant. The wood of the sycomore fig dries only in deep water and its fruit does not ripen unless it is slashed. * Worms, sun-scorching, and rot afflict trees generally. Frost-bite, caterpillars, mutilating roots, and removing bark all around the trunk can damage trees. Also they say that cabbage and sweet bay enfeeble the vine. * The trees, gall oak, Turkey-oak, scrub oak, Valonia oak, kermes-oak, holm-oak, cork-oak, sea-bark oak, Corsican pine, Aleppo pine, fir, silver-fir, joint-fir, beech, yew, hop-hornbeam, lime, maple, ash, cornelian cherry, cornel, cedar, oriental thorn, hawthorn, holly, medlar, sorb, bird-cherry, elder, willow, elm, poplar, acacia, aspen, alder, filbert, terebinth, box, myrtle, cypress, olive, Egyptian plum or sebesten, date-plum, nettle-tree, silphium, saffron-crocus, water-lily, palm and date palm, banyan, banana, mango, jujube, ebony, bay, spurge, frankincense, myrrh, cassia, balsam, cinnamon, citron, centaury, wormwood, pomegranate, pear, apple, hazel, chestnut, tamarisk, fig, sycomore fig, plane-tree, arbutus, andrachne, wig-tree, almond, kolutea, koloitia, Alexandrian laurel, currant, buckthorn, sea-oak, sea-fir, sea-fig, sea-palm, sea-vine, and mangrove in their varieties, localities, and characteristics are affected by climate, soil, and water conditions.

Edible plants

The Greeks ate bread of barley and wheat, grilled or soaked before grinding, formed into loaves or flatbread without leavening or baking. They made a soup or relish of grilled and chopped vegetables, garlic, onions, leeks, cabbage, beans, peas, greens seasoned with olive oil, vinegar, fish sauce, and herbs. They ate the fruit of the medlar, bletted, through the winter. and ate the fruit of the date-plum, fruit of the gods, but didn’t forget, like the men in the Odyssey, about returning home.

Theophrastus was Aristotle’s student, successor, and literary executor. In some respects, his Enquiry into Plants can be seen as a textbook example, for the time, of how to conduct a scientific investigation and publish useful results.

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