The Eno'lish report, that their MILLINGTON* was the/r.9^ true discoverer of this doctrine. 



* LiNN^us would not have so slightly mentioned this immortal discovery of the Sexes of Plants made by our illustrious countryman 

 MILLINGTON, Savilian Professor (probably Sedleian Lecturer on Natural History) at Oxford, and afterwards President of the Royal College 

 of Physicians (a'name not even mentioned in the Encyclopccdia Londinensis, or Biographia Britannica), but henceforth to be esteemed, like 

 that of the memorable Harvey, or Jenner, had he been able to read the admirable account written in English of that important discovery, 

 as it is given us by the learned Grew, in his " Account of the Anatomy of Flowers, prosecuted with the bare eye, and with the microscope," 

 being a discourse read before the Royal Society Nov. g, 167Q, in which he thus clearly explains this matter. 



" The Attire I find to be of two kinds, Seminifonne and Florid. That which 1 call Scminiforme, is made up of two general parts, 

 chives and semets, one upon each chive. These semets (as I take leave to call them) have the appearance, especially in many flowers, of so 

 many little seeds ;'but are quite another kind of body. For, upon enquiry, we find that these semets, though they seem to be solid, and for 

 some time after their first formation, are entire ; yet are they really /io/Zou; ; and their side, or sides, which were at first entire, at length 

 crack asunder: and that moreover the concave of each semet is not a mere vacuity, but filled up with a number of minute particles, in form 

 of a powder. Which, though common to all semets, yet in some, and particularly those of a tulip or a lily, being larger, is more distinctly 



" These semets are sometimes fiistened so, as to stand erect above their chive, as those of larhs- heel. Sometimes, and I think usually, 

 so as to hang a little down by the middle, in the manner and figure of a kidney, as in mallows. Their cleft or crack is sometimes single, 

 but for the most part double: at these clefts it is that they disburse their powders; which as they start out, and stand betwixt the two lips 

 of each cleft, have some resemblance to the common sculpture of a pomegranate with its seeds looking out at the cleft of its rind. This must 

 be observed when the clefts are recently made, which usually is before the expansion of the flower. 



" The particles of these powders, though like those of meal or other dust, they appear not easily to have any regular shape; yet upon 

 strict observation, especially with the assistance even of an indifferent glass, it doth appear, that they are a congeries, usually, of so many per- 

 fect globes or globulets ; som.etimes of other figures, but always regular. That which obscures their figure is their being so small : in dogs- 

 mercury, borage, and very many more plants, they are extremely so. In mallows, and some others, more fairly visible. 



" Some of these powders are yellow, as in dogs-jnercury, goats-rue, &c. and some of other colours : but most of them I think are 

 white ; and those of yellow henbane very elegant, the disbursed powders whereof, to the naked eye, are white as snow ; but each globulet, 

 through a glass, transparent as crystal ; which is not a fallacy from the glass, but what we see in all transparent bodies whatsoever, lying in 



a powder or small particles together. 



" The use of the attire, how contemptibly soever we may look upon it, is certainly great. And though for our own use we value the 

 leaves of the flower, or the foliation, most; yet of all the three parts, this in some respects is the choicest, as for whose sake and service the 

 other two are made. The use hereof, as to ornament and distinction, is unquestionable ; but this is not all. As for distinction, though, by 

 the help of glasses, we may make it to extend far; yet in a passant view, which is all we usually make, we cannot so well. As for ornament, 

 and particularly in' reference to the semets^ we may ask. If for that merely these were meant, then why should they be so made as to break 

 open, or to contain any thing within them ? Since their beauty would be as good if they were not hollow ; and is better before they crack 



and burst open, than afterwards. 



" Other uses hereof therefore we must acknowledge, and may observe. One is, for food ; for ornament and distinction to us, and for 

 food to other animals. I will not say, but that it may serve even to these for distinction too, that they may be able to know one plant from 

 another, and in their flight or progress settle where they like best : and that therefore the varieties of these small parts are many, and well 

 observed by them, which we take no notice of. Yet the finding out of food is but in order to enjoy it : which, that it is provided for a vast 

 number of little animals in the attires of all flowers, observation persuades us to believe. For why else are they evermore here found ? Go 

 from one flower to another, great and small, you shall meet with none untaken up with these guests. In some, and particularly the sun- 

 flower, where the parts of the attire, and the animals for which they provide, are larger, the matter is more visible. We must not think, 

 that Almighty God hath left any of the whole family of his creatures unprovided for ; but as the Great Master, somewhere or other carveth 

 out to all ; and that for a great number of these little folk, he hath stored up their peculiar provisions in the attires of flowers ; each flower 

 thus becoming their lodging and their dining-room, both in one. 



" Wherein the particular parts of the attire may be more distinctly serviceable, this to one animal, and that to another, I cannot say : or 

 to the same animal, as a bee, whether this for the honey, another for their bread, a third for the wax : or whether all only suck from hence 

 some juice ; or some may not also carry some of the parts, as of the globulets, wholly away. 



" But this is only the secondary use of the attire. But the primary and chief use of the attire' (anther) " is such, as hath respect to 

 the plant itself; and so appears to be very great and necessary. Because, even those plants which have no flower or foliature, are yet some 

 way or other attired; either with the seminiform, or the florid attire. So that it seems to perform its service to the seed, as the foliature, to 

 the fruit. In discourse hereof with our learned Savilian Professor, Sir Thomas MILLINGTON, he told me, he ' conceived that the attire 

 doth serve as the male, for the generation of the seed.' 



Grew goes on. " When the semet" {anther-) " ripens, it lets fall the contained powder" {farina), " which particles of powder" 

 {farina) " themselves burst, and let loose a finer pou'cZer" {pollen), " which performs the office of male, and being carried to the seed-case" 

 {germen) " imparts to the seeds a prolific virtue."' Vide Grew's Anatomy, p. 171. Nothing, therefore, can be clearer than that both MIL- 

 LINGTON and G^^W first perfectly knew the sexes of plants. 



Doctor Pulteney also, in his " Historical and Biographical Sketches of the Progress of Botany," is willing to grant the merit of this 

 great discovery to Grew in preference to Millington. Probably this high merit should be equally shared by both. 



" Whether," says he, *' the true idea of the Sexual Process originated with Sir Thomas MiLLiNGTOif, to whom it has been usually 

 ascribed, may justly admit of a doubt; since Sir Thomas has left no written testimony on the subject; and Dr. Gkew's mention of him does 

 not imply that he actually received the idea from him. Add to this, that Mr. Ray, in the summary view of all Grew's discoveries, which 

 he has prefixed to his " History of Plants," does not mention Sir Thomas Millington's name. Interested as we must suppose Mr. Ray to 

 have been, in every discovery relating to vegetables, and candid as he was in his general conduct to the learned, it is not likely that he should 

 have failed, in this instance, to render praise where it was so justly due. When we further recollect, that Dr. Grew had been some years 

 engaged in those microscopical experiments, on the anatomy of plants, which have rendered his name estimable 'with all posterity, that whilst 

 he was thus employed in studying so intimately the organization of vegetables, and had observed, that in whatsoever parts the flower might 

 be deficient, the attire is ever present, is it not strange that the true idea of its use should have been su2;gested to him ?" 



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