ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, I. i. 3—4
support of our argument, since even among animals those that are with young are at their best.[1])
Again many plants shed their parts every year, even as stags shed their horns, birds which hibernate[2] their feathers, four-footed beasts their hair: so that it is not strange that the parts of plants should not be permanent, especially as what thus occurs in animals and the shedding of leaves in plants are analogous processes.
In like manner the parts concerned with reproduction are not permanent in plants; for even in animals there are things which are separated from the parent when the young is born, and there are other things[3] which are cleansed away, as though neither of these belonged to the animal’s essential nature. And so too it appears to be with the growth of plants; for of course growth leads up to reproduction as the completion of the process.[4]
And in general, as we have said, we must not assume that in all respects there is complete correspondence between plants and animals. And that is why the number also of parts is indeterminate; for a plant has the power of growth in all its parts, inasmuch as it has life in all its parts. Wherefore we should assume the truth to be as I have said, not only in regard to the matters now before us, but in view also of those which will come before us presently; for it is waste of time to take great pains to make comparisons where that is impossible, and in so doing we may lose sight also of our proper subject of enquiry. The enquiry into plants, to put it generally, may
- ↑ εὐθενεῖ conj. Sch., εὐθετεῖ UMV Ald. i.e. we do not argue from the fact that animals are at their handsomest in the breeding season that the young is therefore ‘part’ of the animal.
- ↑ Lit. ‘which are in holes,’ in allusion to the well-known belief that animals (especially birds) which are out of sight in the winter are hiding in holes; the text is supported by [Arist.] de plantis 1. 3, the author of which had evidently read this passage; but possibly some such words as τάς τε φολίδας καὶ have dropped out after φωλεύοντα.
- ↑ i.e. the embryo is not the only thing derived from the parent animal which is not a ‘part’ of it; there is also the food-supply produced with the young, and the after-birth.
- ↑ cf. C.P. 1. 11. 8.
