Page:The Works of Aristotle - Vol. 6 - Opuscula (1913).djvu/79



De Plantis is one of the least satisfactory of all the treatises which are included in the Aristotelian corpus.

Firstly, it was certainly not in its original form a work of Aristotle himself; E. H. F. Meyer, who has devoted most time to the text and its elucidation, attributes it to Nicolaus Damascenus. Much of it undoubtedly shows Peripatetic influence, and it has therefore some interest as compensating for the scantiness of our information on botanical subjects in other Aristotelian treatises. The views expressed on sex in plants are of particular importance, as partly anticipating the results of modern botanical research.

Secondly, the text has passed through a chequered career and is in a deplorable condition. The original Greek text having been lost, the treatise was preserved in an Arabic translation, now also lost, which in its turn was translated into Latin during the thirteenth century by a certain Englishman, by name Alfredus, whose knowledge of Arabic and whose Latin style leave something to be desired. The Greek text in Bekker's edition and the Teubner edition is a translation from the Latin back into Greek, and is therefore three times removed from the original.

The present translation has been made from the Latin version of Alfredus as edited by Meyer, to whose commentary I am deeply indebted. F. W. Wimmer's Phytologiae Aristotelicae Fragmenta has also been found useful. It has been thought worth while to note parallels with