Theophrasti De Historia Plantarum (1483 Incunabulum)

There are some with two [nodes], some with three, some with more. Not a few with five; the fir's knots and branches are, as it were, fixed in a straight line, but in others, they are minimal. For which reason the fir is very strong. But truly, the knots of an apple tree are peculiar; they stand out like the faces of monsters, one very large [node], and many small ones around it; and some of the nodes are barren, others fruitful. I call those "others" [barren] those from which no bud can be born. Which are accustomed to be made not only by nature but also by injury; when a part of the tree is broken by some blow, striving to consolidate the wound, the edges of the scar having been turned around on all sides with a callus and the scar having swollen, this happens especially with thicker branches, and sometimes even with the trunks. In sum, on whatever part of the trunk or branch you may cut or break, a node is born there, as if, having divided what was one, you make another principle, whether because of that very injury or because of another cause. For a blow is contrary to nature. Small branches are always seen to be more knotted, because a minimum interval lies between them, just as the fig-tree, which has newly arrived, is the first to be touched; and the power of the shoots, as the mode in others, so is the bud in the vine, and the joint in the reed, from which some things are produced as if by a graft, such as the elm, the oak, and especially the plane tree, which if they stand in dry and windy places, it is necessary that this happens quickly. Finally, that which is nearest to the ground and that which has grown together near the head of the trunk becomes thicker, being fruitful. Some have things called "galls" original: "gongros" by some, or because they respond to the nature of the tree, such as the olive; since the name "olive" applies most to the olive, it seems to labor more than others from that disease; some call it "premium," others "crotona." Others use a different name. In straight, single-stemmed trees, this usually happens less than in those that have many branches; this is not by any means or is accustomed to happen less. The olive and the wild olive are seen to have a peculiar mode in the concavities of their trunks. Therefore, some are suited to be grown most in length, such as the fir, the palm, and the cypress, which rise with a simple trunk and which do not spread with many roots nor frequent branches. Others, by their own nature, resist these very things, as much in length as in depth. Some immediately spread into branches, such as the apple tree; some bear branches as if carrying a larger wolf's mouth, such as the pomegranate; yet truly, for each, both the location, the food, and the cultivation have the most value, so that if they are grown densely, they are rendered tall and slender. If they are sparse, they rise up shorter and thicker; and if you cut and prune the branches immediately, they grow tall, as with the vine. If you leave them, they rise up short, which that [example] can also sufficiently guarantee; for not a few olives take on the figure of a tree, just as the mallow and the beet, as has already been said; all things grow better in their own locations, for even among those that share the same genus, those that remain in their own locations exist as more knotless, larger, and more beautiful, such as the Macedonian fir is observed to be more excellent than the others, and others [similarly]. All these, and in total, if the material is more beautiful, more convenient, and more abundant, it is born on the northern part of the mountain than the southern. Others also are evergreen; others are green with falling leaves. From the urban ones, the olive, the palm, the laurel, the myrtle, a certain genus of pine, and the cypress are always green; from the wild ones, the fir, the pitch-pine, the juniper, the smilax, the thuja, and that which the Arcadians call phellodrys cork-oak, the linden, the cedar, the spruce, the tamarisk, the boxwood, the holly, the celastrus bittersweet, the phillyrea, the sharp thorn, and the aphaca vetch, which come from Mount Olympus; the purslane, the arbutus, the turpentine tree, the laurel, the purslane, and the strawberry tree drop their lower leaves. They are always green at the tips, and continuously with the branches [they are] transposed.