PLINY: NATURAL HISTORY

BOOK XXIV

I. Even the forests and the wilder aspects of nature are not without medicines. That sacred parent of all things has everywhere provided remedies for mankind, so that even the wilderness itself might become a pharmacy, as the miracles of nature's discord and harmony confront us at every turn. The oak and the olive are separated by such persistent hatred that if one is planted in a hole from which the other has been removed, they die; the oak also dies if planted near a walnut tree. There is a deadly hatred between the cabbage and the vine, and the very vegetable that drives the vine away will itself wither if planted near cyclamen or wild marjoram. It is also said that trees, even those that are old and being felled, are more difficult to cut and decay more quickly if touched by a human hand before the axe. It is believed that beasts of burden immediately sense when their load consists of fruit.

The tense of fieret shows that the participle disponente is imperfect, referring to the time of the actual creation. The ut might be final: "for the very desert to become a drug store."