Nearly all[1] the garden plants have a single[2] root only, radishes, beet, parsley, and mallows, for example; it is lapathum, however, that has the longest root of them all, it attaining the length of three cubits even. The root of the wild kind is smaller and of a humid nature, and when up it will keep alive for a considerable period. In some of these plants, however, the roots are fibrous, as we find the case in parsley and mallows, for instance; in others, again, they are of a ligneous nature, as in ocimum, for example; and in others they are fleshy, as in beet, and in saffron even more so. In some, again, the root is composed of rind and flesh, as in the radish and the rape; while in others it is jointed, as in hay grass[3]. Those plants which have not a straight root throw out immediately a great number of hairy fibres, orage[4] and blite,[5] for instance: squills again, bulbs, onions, and garlic never have any but a vertical root. Among the plants that grow spontaneously, there are some which have more numerous roots than leaves, spalax,[6] for example, pellitory,[7] and saffron.[8]

Wild thyme, southernwood, turnips, radishes, mint, and rue blossom all[9] at once; while others, again, shed their blossom directly they have begun to flower. Ocimum[10] blossoms gradu- ally, beginning at the lower parts, and hence it is that it is so very long in blossom: the same is the case, too, with the plant known as heliotropium.[11] In some plants the flower is white, in others yellow, and in others purple. The leaves fall first[12] from the upper part in wild-marjoram and elecampane, and in rue[13] sometimes, when it has been injured accidentally. In some plants the leaves are hollow, the onion and the scallion,[14] more particularly.