as those of the wild olive, while others are set at random. Again some trees have double knots, some treble,[1] some more at the same point; some have as many as five. [2]In the silver-fir both the knots and the smaller branches[3] are set at right angles, as if they were stuck in, but in other trees they are not so. And that is why the silver-fir is such a strong tree.[4] Most peculiar[5] are the knots of the apple, for they are like the faces of wild animals; there is one large knot, and a number of small ones round it. Again some knots are blind,[6] others productive; by 'blind' I mean those from which there is no growth. These come to be so either by nature or by mutilation, according as either the knot[7] is not free and so the shoot does not make its way out, or, a bough having been cut off, the place is mutilated, for example by burning. Such knots occur more commonly in the thicker boughs, and in some cases in the stem also. And in general, wherever one chops or cuts part of the stem or bough, a knot is formed, as though one thing were made thereby into two and a fresh growing point produced, the cause being the mutilation or some other such reason; for the effect of such a blow cannot of course be ascribed to nature.
Again in all trees the branches always seem to have more knots, because the intermediate parts[8] have not yet developed, just as the newly formed branches of the fig are the roughest,[9] and in the vine the highest[10] shoots. [11](For to the knot in other
- ↑ cf. 4. 4. 12.
- ↑ Plin. 16. 122.
- ↑ i.e. primary and secondary branches.
- ↑ cf. 5. 2. 2.
- ↑ Plin. 16. 124.
- ↑ cf. Arist. de iuv. et sen. 3; Plin. 16. 125.
- ↑ ὃταν . . . πηρωθῆ conj. W.; ἣ ὃταν ἡ μὴ λυθῇ καὶ ἐκβιάζηται καὶ ἡ ἀποκοπῇ καὶ U; ὃταν ἡ μὴ λυθῇ καὶ ἐκβιάζηται ἣ ἀποκοπῇ P; ἣ ὃταν λυθῇ καὶ ἐκβιάζηται ἣ ἀποκοπὴ καὶ οἱ οὐ P2; ὃταν ἡ μὴ λυθῇ καὶ ἐκβιάζηται καὶ ἡ ἀποκοπῇ καὶ Ald.H.; G differs widely.
- ↑ i.e. the internodes; till the branch is fully grown its knots are closer together, and so seem more numerous: μήπω τἀνὰ μέσον προσηυξῆσθαι conj. Sch.; μήπω τἀνὰ μέσον προσκυζῆθαι U; μήτ᾽ ἀνὰ μέσον προσκυξεῖσθαι MAld.; μήποτ᾽ ἀνάμεσον προσηυξῆσθαι P2.
- ↑ i.e. have most knots.
- ↑ i.e. youngest.
- ↑ Plin. 16. 125.
