Theophrasti De Historia Plantarum (1483 Incunabulum)

Furthermore, they differ in this way: some are clustered and promiscuous, others are discrete and distant, such as the cucurbitae gourds, the cucumeris cucumber, and among the category of trees, the fig and the apple. Of the clustered ones themselves, some are contained by a certain shell or skin, such as the pomegranate, the apple, the pear, the vine, and the fig. Some are indeed clustered but enclosed by nothing, such as those that bear an ear among the annuals—unless one should think that the ear itself encompasses them. If this is so, the grape cluster will also be thus, and the remaining things that are produced in clusters. These arise equally, all together, because of their fertility and the power of the soil: just as they affirm that olives bear fruit in Syria and in other places.

Indeed, that also seems to be accepted as a certain difference: that some produce clustered fruit by a single stalk and a singular attachment, as we said regarding grape clusters and ears, arising with no common covering surrounding them. Others are different. For each seed, or what surrounds it, taken separately, seems to have its own principle of attachment, such as the grains, then the grapes, then the pomegranate. Likewise, wheat and barley. As for apples and pears, where they are joined and encompassed as if by a certain membrane, which the flesh of the fruit covers, you might perceive it less, yet each of them also has its own principle and a distinct nature. But in the pomegranate, it is most evident because they are more expressly discerned. For the seed nucleus kernel/seed adheres to each. It is not crushed by its excessive moisture as in the case of figs. For they differ from one another in this, even though both are contained by a certain flesh and by that which encompasses the flesh with the rest. These have that fleshy moisture around each seed, while the grain of the fig is common, as it were, to all, just as is the grape seed and things similar to these.

But we can perhaps grasp many more differences of this kind, the chief and most natural of which one ought not to be ignorant of. As for those that might be accepted regarding flavors, coldness, and all forms, they are almost entirely apparent to all, so that they require no explanation, except perhaps for this: that no fruit is rectilinear or angular. Regarding juices, some are wine-like, such as those of the vine, the mulberry, and the myrtle. Others are fatty, such as the olive, the laurel, the nut, the almond, the pine, the larch, and the fir. Others are sweet, such as the fig, the date, and the acorn of the oak. Others are sharp, such as oregano, savory, nasturtium, and mustard. Others are bitter, such as wormwood and fellis terrae gentian/bitter earth-gall. They also differ in odor, such as anise and the cedar cone. You might think some are diluted, such as those of plums, or acidic, such as those of pomegranates and certain apples. But all that might contribute to this genus must be considered wine-like. Others assign them to other genera, the individual ones of which we will pursue in the book On Flavors, embracing the genera themselves by number, as well as rendering the differences of each in turn, and what the nature of each one is.

The sap of the trees themselves, as we have reported, also seems to be finished in various genera. For one is similar to milky juice, such as the fig and the poppy. Another is resinous, such as the fir, the pine, and all conifers. Another is watery, such as the vine, the pear, and the apple. And in the category of vegetables, the cucumber, the gourd, and the lettuce. Some possess a certain sharpness, such as thyme and savory. Some also provide a sweet fragrance, such as parsley, dill, fennel, and other similar things.