The earth's first vegetation and the seed-bearing trees

For when it is burned by excess of cold, it changes to another color and taste. And indeed it is said that when it finds suitable soil and temperate air, it returns to its original form. So you would find nothing among growing things that comes to pass apart from the command. But the so-called darnel, and all the other bastard seeds mixed in with the nourishing ones—which Scripture customarily calls tares—do not come from a change in the wheat, but arise from their own origin, having their own kind. These fill out the image of those who counterfeit the Lord's teachings and are not genuinely discipled by the word, but are corrupted by the teaching of the evil one and mix themselves into the healthy body of the Church, so that from hiding they may inflict their own harms on the more innocent. Already the Lord also likens the perfecting of those who have believed in him to the growth of seeds, saying: "As when a man casts the seed on the ground, and sleeps, and rises night and day, and the seed rises and lengthens, he does not know how. For the earth bears fruit by itself: first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear" (Mark 4:26-28). "Let the earth bring forth vegetation" (Genesis 1:11). And in the briefest moment of time, the earth began from the sprouting, so that it might keep the laws of its Creator, and passing through every form of growth, it immediately brought the sprouts to completion. The meadows were deep with the abundance of grass, and the fruitful plains, bristling with standing crops, preserved the image of a swelling sea in the movement of the ears of grain. Every herb and every kind of vegetable, and whatever belongs to brushwood and whatever belongs to pulses, then abounded on the earth in all abundance. For there was no failure among the things then brought forth: neither the inexperience of farmers, nor the harshness of the air, nor any other cause was harming what came to be. Nor indeed did the condemnation hinder the fertility of the earth. For these things are older than the sin for which we were condemned to eat our bread in the sweat of our face (Genesis 3:19).

But also, he says, "a fruit-bearing tree, producing fruit, whose seed is in it according to kind and according to likeness upon the earth" (Genesis 1:11). At this word all the thickets grew dense; all the trees sprang up—those that by nature rise to the greatest height, firs and cedars, cypresses and pines. All the shrubs were at once leafy on both sides and thick. And the plants called garland-making—the rosebeds and myrtles and laurels—all in one moment of time, not previously existing above the earth, came into being, each with its own proper character, separated by the clearest differences from those of other kinds, and each recognized by its own mark. Except that the rose was then without a thorn; later the thorn was yoked to the beauty of the flower, so that close beside the delight of enjoyment we might have the grief placed nearby, remembering the sin for which the earth was condemned to bring forth thorns and thistles for us (Genesis 3:18). But it was commanded, he says, that the earth put forth "a fruit-bearing tree, producing fruit upon the earth, whose seed is in it." Yet we see many trees that have neither fruit nor seed.