After Aristotle 59 



a few cases a sterile variety is described as the male and a fertile 

 as the female. In a small residuum of cases dioecious plants 

 or flowers are regarded as male and female, but with no real 

 comprehension of the sexual nature of the flowers. There 

 remain the palms, in which the knowledge of plant sex had 

 advanced a trifle farther. ' With dates ', says Theophrastus, 

 ' the males should be brought to the females ; for the males 

 make the fruit persist and ripen, and this some call by analogy 

 to use the wild, Jig (oXwOd^Lv). 1 The process is thus : when 

 the male is in flower they at once cut off the spathe with 

 the flower and shake the bloom, with its flower and dust, over 

 the fruit of the female, and, if it is thus treated, it retains the 

 fruit and does not shed it.' 2 The fertilizing character of the 

 spathe of the male date palm was familiar in Babylon from 

 a very early date. It is recorded by Herodotus 3 and is repre- 

 sented by a frequent symbol on the Assyrian monuments. 



The comparison of the fertilization of the date palm to the 

 use of the wild fig refers to the practice of Caprification. 

 Theophrastus tells us that there are certain trees, the fig 

 among them, which are apt to shed their fruit prematurely. 

 To remedy this ' the device adopted is caprification. Gall 

 insects come out of the wild figs which are hanging there, eat 

 the tops of the cultivated figs, and so make them swell '. 4 

 These gall-insects ' are engendered from the seeds '. 5 Theo- 

 phrastus distinguished between the process as applied to the 

 fig and the date, observing that ' in both [fig and date] the 



1 The curious word oXwdd^eii', here translated to use the zvildfig, is from 

 o\vvdos, a kind of wild fig which seldom ripens. The special meaning here 

 given to the word is explained in another work of Theophrastus, Decausis 

 plantamm, ii. 9, xv. After describing caprification in figs, he says TO 6"e ent 

 TU>V <froiv'iK.(t)v (TVfjLJSalvov ov TCLVTOV /^ef, e'^ei 6e TLVO. 6/ni3r>}ra roura) 6V 

 o KaXtwa-iv o\vvddfiv avrovs ' The same thing is not done with dates, but 

 something analogous to it, whence this is called oXvvOd&iv '. 



2 Historia plantarum, ii. 8, iv. 3 Herodotus . i. 193. 

 4 Historia plantarum, ii. 8, i. 5 Ibid. ii. 8, ii. 



