(10) And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

(35) Certain plants, minerals, and animals have been sacred among all the nations of the earth because of their peculiar sensitiveness to the astral fire--a mysterious agency in Nature which the scientific world has contacted through its manifestations as electricity and magnetism. Lodestone and radium in the mineral world and various parasitic growths in the plant kingdom are strangely susceptible to this cosmic electric fire, or universal life force. The magicians of the Middle Ages surrounded themselves with such creatures as bats, spiders, cats, snakes, and monkeys, because they were able to appropriate the life forces of these species and use them to the attainment of their own ends. Some ancient schools of wisdom taught that all poisonous insects and reptiles are germinated out of the evil nature of man, and that when intelligent human beings no longer breed hate in their own souls there will be no more ferocious animals, loathsome diseases, or poisonous plants and insects.

(1) On the nature of plants it says in revelation, that, before the coming of the destroyer, vegetation had no thorn and bark about it; and, afterwards, when the destroyer came, it became coated with bark and thorny, for antagonism mingled with every single thing; owing to that cause vegetation is also much mixed with poison, like Bis the height of hemp (kand), that is poisonous, for men when they eat it die.

(6) The plant might also be considered worthy of veneration because from its crushed leaves, petals, stalks, or roots could be extracted healing unctions, essences, or drugs affecting the nature and intelligence of human beings--such as the poppy and the ancient herbs of prophecy. The plant might also be regarded as efficacious in the cure of many diseases because its fruit, leaves, petals, or roots bore a resemblance in shape or color to parts or organs of the human body. For example, the distilled juices of certain species of ferns, also the hairy moss growing upon oaks, and the thistledown were said to have the power of growing hair; the dentaria, which resembles a tooth in shape, was said to cure the toothache; and the palma Christi plant, because of its shape, cured all afflictions of the hands.

(16) The Plane of Plant Mind, in its seven sub-divisions, comprises the states or conditions of the entities comprising the kingdoms of the Plant World, the vital and mental phenomena of which is fairly well understood by the average intelligent person, many new and interesting scientific works regarding "Mind and Life in Plants" having been published during the last decade. Plants have life, mind and "souls," as well as have the animals, man, and super-man.

(13) From this root there grow and ripen the fruits of birth, of the life-span, of all that is tasted in life.

(2) In like manner even as the animals, with grain of fifty and five species and twelve species of medicinal plants, have arisen from the primeval ox, ten thousand species among the species of principal plants, and a hundred thousand species among ordinary plants have grown from all these seeds of the tree opposed to harm, the many-seeded, which has grown in the wide-formed ocean.

(4) Ten thousand of them grew forth of one special description, for keeping away the ten thousand species of disease which the evil spirit produced for the creatures; and from those ten thousand, the 100,000 species of plants have grown forth.

(4) Now, on the man who proposes the question denying that plants are animals, we shall show that he affirms what contradicts himself. For, having defined the animal by the fact of its nourishment and growth, but having asserted that a plant is not an animal, it appears that he says nothing else than that what is nourished and grows is both an animal and not an animal.

(25) For every quality bears its own fruit: as in the corrupted murderous den or dark valley and dungeon of the earth there spring up all manner of earthly trees, plants, flowers and fruits.

(3) For Plato calls plants animals, as partaking of the third species of life alone, that of appetency. But Aristotle, while he thinks that plants are possessed of a life of vegetation and nutrition, does not consider it proper to call them animals; for that alone, which possesses the other life - that of sensation - he considers warrantable to be called an animal. The Stoics do not call the power of vegetation, life.

(18) The Hôm which is out-squeezed is the chief of medicinal plants.

(3) On the whole earth plants grew up like hair upon the heads of men.

(83) Then the heat above the earth presseth upon the stalk, and so the bitter quality is then kindled by the heat, and it [the stalk] receiveth a repulse from the heat, so that it is terrified, and the astringent quality drieth it.

As long as their [insides] are hidden, [most] beings in the world are alive and well. [If their insides] are exposed, they die, as is clear by the example of the visible part of a person. [As long as] a person’s intestines are hidden, the person is alive. If the intestines are exposed and come out, the person dies. Likewise, while its root is hidden, a tree sprouts and grows. If its root is exposed, the tree withers. So it is with all things produced in the world, not only the visible but also the hidden. As long as the root of evil is hidden, it is strong. When it is recognized, it is undone, and if it is brought to light, it dies. For this reason the word says, “Already the ax is laid at the root of the trees.” It will not merely cut them down, for what is cut down sprouts up again. Rather, the ax will dig down until it cuts out the root. Jesus pulled out the root of the whole place, but others did so only in part.

(68) But if thorns grow among them, and the mower cometh to reap his crop, he cutteth them down together, but he casteth out the thorns, and they are to be burnt in the fire; but the various flowers and good crop he gathereth, and causes it to be brought into his barn.

(5) These are as many genera of plants as exist: trees and shrubs, fruit-trees, corn, flowers, aromatic herbs, salads, spices, grass, wild plants, medicinal plants, gum plants, and all producing oil, dyes, and clothing.

(5) The tender plant, and withers all its shades;

It lies uprooted from its genial bed,

A lovely ruin now defac’d and dead.

(15) Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

(55) Then you taste the bitter quality, which makes the tree moveable or stirring, so that it springeth and grows green and flourisheth, and so getteth its branches, leaves and fruit.