Enquiry into Plants

written in a manner accommodated to the ears of all; so that it would be hardly possible for a foreign word to occupy a place not its own while preserving the harmony of the sound. But for any botanist who diligently turns the pages of Theophrastus’s descriptions and investigates the plants themselves in the fields (especially those who happen to investigate them in their native habitat), a similar outcome, if I am not mistaken, will occur: the specimen itself will be under his eyes as a commentary on the text, and it will, for the most part, provide a remedy for corrupt passages.

One may infer from Strabo that something quite peculiar happened to the manuscripts of Aristotle and Theophrastus; for we read thus: “Neleus handed over the books of Aristotle to those who came after him, private men, who kept the books locked away and not even carefully stored. But when they perceived the eagerness of the Attalic kings, who were seeking books for the construction of the library at Pergamum, they hid them underground in a kind of trench. Damaged by moisture and worms, they were later sold by those of his lineage to Apellicon of Teos for a large sum of money (both the books of Aristotle and those of Theophrastus). Now Apellicon was more a lover of books than a philosopher; for which reason, seeking a correction of the erosions, he transferred the text to new copies, filling in the gaps not well, and published the books full of errors.” Strab. Op. lib. xiii.

Among the countless errors, it is my pleasure to extract an example where, once the specimens are compared with the description, the true reading will shine forth from the sheer darkness. Two species of the genus Elate (Fir) are enumerated by Linnaeus