and dry food, for coldness is always found in dry food; for neither of these two natures[1] is ever unaccompanied by the other. And so food is continuously being supplied to that which feeds on it till the time when it begins to decay, and animals and plants have to be provided with food composed of the same elements as those of which they themselves are composed.
2 Let us now investigate what we have already mentioned, namely, desire in plants, their movement, and their soul, and that which is given forth[2] by them. A plant has not respiration, although Anaxagoras declared that it has;[3] and we even find many animals which have not respiration.[4] We can see by ocular demonstration that plants do not sleep and wake, for waking is due to an effect of sensation, and sleeping is an enfeebled condition of sensation,[5] and nothing of this kind is found in that which vegetates at all times in the same condition, and is itself naturally without sensation. When an animal takes food, a vapour rises from the food into its head and it falls asleep,[6] and, when the vapour which rises to its head is consumed, it wakes up. In some animals this vapour is plentiful and yet[7] they sleep but little. Sleep is the suppression of motion and this involves the quiescence of the thing moved.
The most important and appropriate subject of inquiry which arises in the science of botany is that proposed by817a Empedocles, namely, whether female and male sex is found in plants, or whether there is a combination of the two sexes.[8] Now we assert that when the male generates it generates in another, and when the female generates it generates from another,[9] and both are mutually separate. This is not found to be the case in plants; for in a particular species the produce of the male plant will be rougher,
- ↑ i.e coldness and dryness.
- ↑ In particular, whether plants breathe, which is discussed in the next sentence.
- ↑ Cf. de respir. 470b 30.
- ↑ Cf. ib. 470b 9.
- ↑ Cf. de somno 454b 27 ff.
- ↑ CF. ib. 456b 21 ff.
- ↑ Reading with MS. Bas. quae tamen.
- ↑ The whole of this discussion follows closely that in G. A. 731a 1–b 8.
- ↑ ib. 716a 21–23.
