PiSTACiA^* certainly as far as respects these trees, who always had the custom of suspending 

 the male flowers over ih^ female in order to obtain fruit. 



Nor can it be denied that the most ancient writers have expressly made mention of the Sexes 

 in Plants. § But how little true knowledge thev possessed upon this subject, and upon what 

 slender foundations it was built, appears from this, that they often mention males -cWkX females , as 

 separate in plants, where no such distinction existed. '\' 



Nay, after the revival of letters, even in the last century. Botanists had so imbibed this 

 ancient error, that even eminent teachers of the art so badly discriminated the Sexes, that they 

 often called that a male which was ih^ female plant,J which cannot better demonstrate their entire 

 unacquaintance with the subject. 



* The Turpentine Tree, the Terebenthus Tndica of Theophrastus, p. 401, is thus mentioned by Plinj. " Syria Terebinthum 

 habet, Mnscula est sine fructu. Fasminarum duo species; alteri fructus ruber lentis magnitudine, alteri pallidus." 



" In Syria is produced the turpentine tree. The male bears no fruit. The female is of two kinds, the one has red grains of the size of 

 peas, the other sort produces a pale fruit." Plin. Book XI [I. Chap. TV. 



This would be decisive, as proving Pliny's knowledge of the sexes of plants, but unfortunately for him, there is found in the same 

 book, the following passage : 



" Etiam Rhus Syriae mascula fert. sterili faemina." 



" Also in Syria is produced the Rhus, or Sumach, the male of which hears fruit, but the female is barren." 



BoccoNi, who wrote in 1697, notices the /nr^Ze and female Turpentine Tree. " E perche in sacca et in Agrigento osservai due 

 albere di Pistacchi, differenti una dall altero, c distinti dai paesani contituto do maschio et femina.'" " I observed in Agrigentum two trees 

 of the Pistachia, or Turpentine Tree, differing from each other, which the peasants distinguish by the title of truile and female." 



I shall produce now a modern authority. 



" In the garden of the Austin Friars I saw several large Pistachia nut-trees, called in Sicilian, Scornahecco, and the fruit, Fastugo. 

 These trees are of Linnseus's Class Dicecia, Order Pentandria, and produce male and female flowers upon different distinct plants. The 

 latter prove barren and useless, unless rendered fruitful by the aspersion of the farina from a male plant, and, therefore, the purposes of fe- 

 cundity can only be answered by trees of different sexes being set near each other. In these gardens are many of the female kind, and only 

 one of the /na/e, which has small, oblong, blunt leaves, of a dusky green, the flowers thick, and in bunches ; the /emaZe blossoms are more 

 scattered, the leaves larger, harder and rounder, and of a lighter colour. The male flowers first, and some gardeners pluck them when shut, 

 dry them, and afterwards sprinkle the dust over the female tree. But the method usually followed in Sicily, when the trees are far asunder, 

 is to wait till the female buds are open, and then to gather bunches of the male blossoms ready to blow ; these are stuck into a pot of moist 

 mould and hung upon the female tree, till they are quite dry and empty; this operation is called Tuchiare, and never fails to produce fruc- 

 tification." Swinburne's Travels, Vol. iii. p. 3S6. 2d Ed. 8vo. I/90. 



Although I may seem to anticipate the train of reasoning of Linnaeus, I cannot forbear relating here a story respecting the Turpentine 

 Tree (Pistachia Terebinthus) recorded by Duhamel. 



" In the garden of Mons. De la Serre, in the Rue de St. Jaque at Paris, there grew ?i female turpentine tree, which flowered every 

 year, but which furnished him no fruit capable of vegetation. This was a very sensible mortification to the owner, who being ignorant of the 

 doctrine of the sexes of plants, had laboured very hard to obtain an increase of that tree. 



" Mess. Duhamel and Jussieu very properly took away all blame from the elements, and promised him they would soon procure him 

 the pleasure he desired. They sent him a male turpentine tree, which was very much loaded with Blossoms. It was according to their 

 direction planted near to the female turpentine tree. That year it produced a great quantity of fruit well conditioned, and such as, when 

 planted, rose with facility. Being removed, his ^eA/iaZe turpentine tree became barren as before." 



Some gardeners in Sicily, according to Swinburne, have ingeniously contrived the art of budding the male tree upon the female, by 

 which means the two sexes are placed together upon the same tree. 



§ The ancients certainly had no true knowledge of the Sexes of Plants, as at this day understood, as I have proved in the last note, 

 and elsewhere ; this indeed Linnaeus, in the very next passage, seems to admit. Although these facts were thus daily obtruded on their 

 senses, inattentive to the structure of flowers, and ignorant of the orfices of the several parts, they remained unacquainted with the true 

 operations of Nature in this phtcnomenon, though daily presented to their observation. 



f As the maZe Peony, m«Ze Cistus, maZe Fern, maZe Orchis, maZe Veronica, maZe Abrotanum, &c. 



+ The Mercurialis Perennis, our common Dogs Mercury, is thus described by J, Bauhin. " Ex foliorum alis, faminm quidem 

 ligulce rectae emicant, tenues, quas verticiUatim seu in spica ambiunt flosculi glomerati muscosi, qui in quatuor foliola herbida sese explicantes 

 cirros apiculorum luteolorum aut herbidorum ostentant, nullo succedento semine pereuntes. Mari autem ex eisdem alis breves pediculi ori- 

 untur, quorum singulis testiculata bursala, nonnihil compressa, hirsutaque insidet, gemina semina includens." Our countryman Ray 

 could not let this pass unnoticed, who, in vol. i. lib. iv, chap. v. " De Mercuriali," remarks, " In hac descriptione J. Bauhinus vulgarem 

 opinionem sequitur, Mercurialem sterilem pro fcemina, et fertilem pro mari accipiens : cum e contra rationi consonum sit et aliarum rerum 

 naturahum analogiae, ut sterilis dicatur mas, fertilis fcemina. Fcemina enim est in omni genere quee f^tificat et fructum edit." " In this 

 description John Bauhine follows the vulgar error, taking the barren Mercury for the/em«Ze, and the fertile as the male : fork is contrary 

 to sound judgment, and the analogy of other productions in nature, to call that which is barren, the female ; and that y^-hich produces, the 

 male. The female in all plants is that which swells, and produces seeds." Also in another chapter, when speaking of the Spinach, " vol i 

 chap. iv. De Spinachia," he corrects again the vulgar error of making "the spiked flowers into the female, and the sessile ones mto the 

 maZe, ^also that the male and female plants were distinct species." Flis words are " Spm^chm fcemina, seu sterilis, perperam pro specie 

 diversa a Casp. Bauhino ponitur, cum ex eodem cum fertili semine proveniat." 



unac- 



