Aristotle's ΠΕΡΙ ΦΥΤΩΝ
As regards Aristotle's Περὶ φυτῶν ᾱβ mentioned in Diog. Laert.'s list (nr. 108), Alexander's Statement is decisive: … ἔστι περὶ φυτῶν Θεοφράστῳ πραγματεία γεγραμμένη ᾿Αριστοτέλους γὰροὐ φέρεται and though Simplicius and others occasionally refer to a πραγματεία περὶ φυτῶν there is no indication that they ever saw the book with their own eyes. Aristotle's treatise On Plants, therefore, seems to have disappearedat an early date, and since the quotations in Antigonus, Athenaeus and others are concerned with insignificant details, they cannot give any hint as to its contents.It has often been asked whether there exists any relation between this lost treatise and the two books Περὶ φυτῶν which are incorporated into all editions of the Corpus Aristotelicum (pp. 814–830 Bk.), but the question has never received a definite answer. There are good reasons for this reticence, for though these books were identified more than a century ago as a work of Nicolaus of Damascus, the text is in such a deplorable condition that it seemed to resist every attempt at interpretation. However, since in 1841 E. H. F. Meyer published the Arabic-Latin translation made by Alfred of Sareshel (the exemplar of the clumsy Greek rendering whichwas already known), the material has considerably increased.