Theophrasti De Historia Plantarum (1483 Incunabulum)

It does not seem to desire an upward-facing position, especially since the reflection is caused by the sun. This can be easily observed in those plants that are dense and orderly, such as the myrtle myrtus. Some believe that nourishment is carried to the upper part via the lower part because the latter is always moist and downy. However, this is not correct; that condition perhaps occurs independently of its own nature, as they are altered in a similar way. In truth, nourishment is carried equally to both parts through veins or nerves. There is no reason for it to be carried from one side to the other, since it has no passages, nor are there internal structures through which it might pass. But the question of which vessels offer nourishment should be a separate discussion.

Leaves themselves seem to differ from one another in many ways. Among trees, some have broad leaves, such as the vine, fig, and plane tree platanus. Others have narrow leaves, such as the olive, pomegranate, and myrtle. Others have sparse foliage, such as the pine, silver fir, and cedar. Others have leaves that are as if fleshy, because they consist of pulp, such as the cypress, tamarisk myrica, and the uallo a type of desert shrub. Among the category of shrubs, this is seen in the spurge flax cnioro and the stipe stem-like shrub. Among herbs, it is found in the houseleek and the germander polium, which is useful when placed among garments against harmful worms.

For the leaves of beets or cabbages brassicae, or those called rutulae a type of reddish plant, are fleshy in a different way. The flesh extends in breadth, not in thickness or roundness. The tamarisk among shrubs has a fleshy leaf. In some, the leaves are reed-like harundinacea, such as the palm, the coix, and other similar plants which, to speak generally, consist of angular leaves. Indeed, the reed harundo, the sword lily gladiolus, the flowering rush butomus, and other marsh plants have leaves of this kind.

All leaves appear to consist of two parts. They have a middle part like a keel, from which a wide central passage extends to the others. They also differ in shape. Some are round, like those of the pear tree; others are elongated, like those of the apple tree; others are tapered to a point and depressed into an angle, like those of ivy. Furthermore, some are multifid and as if serrated, like those of the silver fir, fern, and vine; or they are fissured, like the jagged leaf of the fig, or, if I may say so, cross-shaped. Some are notched, such as those of the elm, oak, and hazelnut. Some are sinuate at both the tip and the sides, such as those of the holm oak, common oak, sarsaparilla smilax, bramble, Christ's thorn paliurus, and others. Those of the pine, larch, silver fir, and even the cedar and cedria cedar resin or cedar-like tree are pointed at the tip.

There is no tree known to us that has thorns instead of leaves. However, among the genus of low-growing material, thorns serve as leaves, such as in the prickly burnet drypis, the acanos a type of thistle, and almost the entire thorny genus. In all these, the thorn arises in place of the leaf. If anyone were to deny that these are leaves, it would follow that they lack leaves entirely, being merely pointed, like the asparagus.

Again, some leaves lack a stalk, such as those of the squill scilla and bulbous plants. Others have them, and some are long, such as those of the vine and ivy. Others are short, so that they appear attached, like those of the olive; they do not hang and tremble like those of the plane tree or the vine. Another difference is that they do not hang from the same parts; most grow from the bud, while some grow from the branch, and in the oak, even from the trunk. In the majority of pot-herbs, the leaves emerge directly from the root, such as the onion and some types of wild chicory. This is also true for the royal splinters interpreting assulae regiae as a type of bulbous root system, the squill, the bulb, and the iris isirinchio. And in general, in bulbous plants, not only does the first growth occur this way, but the stalk is entirely devoid of leaves. For in some plants, once the leaves are fully developed, the stalk rises accordingly, as in lettuce, basil ocimum, celery apium, and in a similar way in grains. Some of these send up the stalk first, and after [that]...