Page:Enquiry into plants (Volume 1).pdf/201

Rh or flowerless; for certain distinctions apply to all trees whether cultivated or wild. To wild trees, as compared with cultivated ones, belong the special properties of fruiting late, of greater vigour, of abundance of fruit, produced if not matured; for they ripen their fruit later, and in general their time of flowering and making growth is later; also they are more vigorous in growth, and so, though they produce more fruit, they ripen it less; if this is not universally true, at least it holds good of the wild olive and pear as compared with the cultivated forms of these trees. This is generally true with few exceptions, as in the cornelian cherry and sorb; for the wild forms of these, they say, ripen their fruit better, and it is sweeter than in the cultivated forms. And the rule also does not hold good of anything which does not admit of cultivation, whether it be a tree or one of the smaller plants, as silphium caper and, among leguminous plants, the lupin; these one might say are specially wild in their character. For, as with animals which do not submit to domestication, so a plant which does not submit to cultivation may be called wild in its essential character. However Hippon declares that of every plant there exists both a cultivated and a wild form, and that 'cultivated' simply means that the plant has received attention, while 'wild' means that it has not; but though he is partly right, he is partly wrong. It is true that any plant deteriorates by neglect and so becomes wild but it is not true that every plant may be improved by attention, as has been said. Wherefore we must make our distinction and call some things wild, others

167