+266+. This difference of attitude on man's part toward different plants probably showed itself at an early period. Those that were found to be noxious he would avoid; the useful he would enter into relations with, though on this point for very early times there is in the nature of the case little information.[472] Unfriendly or demonic spirits of plants are recognized by savage man in certain forests whose awe-inspiring gloom, disease-breeding vapors, and wild beasts repel and frighten him. Demons identified with plants or dwelling in them are of the same nature as animal demons, and have been dealt with in the same way as these.[473] +267+. The progress of society brought men into association with useful plants, such as medicinal and edible herbs, and fruit-bearing and shade-giving trees; these, conceived of as inhabited by anthropomorphic spirits, fulfilled all the functions that attach to friendly animals. They became guardians and allies, totems and ancestors.[474] Several of the Central Australian totems are plants, and form part of the mythical ancestral population constructed by the imagination or ethnographic science of the people.[475] In Samoa a plant is often the incarnation of a spirit friendly to a particular family[476]--a conception that is not improbably a development from an earlier view that a certain plant had a special relation to a certain clan.[477] In general, a plant important in a given region (as, for example, the tobacco plant in North America) is likely to be invested with a sacred character. +268+. Trees, by reason of their greater dignity (size, beauty, protective character), have generally been singled out as special cultic centers.[478] A great tree sometimes served as a boundary mark or signpost; under trees chiefs of clans sat to decide disputes. Thus invested with importance as a sort of political center as well as the abode of a spirit, a tree naturally became a shrine and an asylum.[479] In India and Greece, and among the ancient Celts and Germans, the gods were worshiped in groves, by the Canaanites and Hebrews "under every green tree." To cut down a sacred tree was a sacrilege, and the spirit of the tree was believed to avenge the crime.[480] +269+. As might be expected, there is hardly a species of tree that has not been held sacred by some group of men. The Nagas and other tribes of Northeast India regard all plants as sacred,[481] and every village has its sacred tree. In Babylonia and Assyria, it is said, there were hundreds of trees looked on as invested with more or less sanctity. The oak was revered in some parts of Greece, and among the Romans and the Celts. The cult of particular species, as the pipal (_Ficus religiosa_), the vata or banyan (_Ficus Indica_), the karam and others, has been greatly systematized in India.[482]