From Aristotle to Camerarius. 377 



plant therefore reproduces itself and emits no fertilising 

 material ; and he adds, that in animals which do not move, 

 as those that have shells and those that live attached to some 

 other substance, male and female are not distinguished, for 

 their life resembles that of plants ; at the same time they 

 are called male and female by resemblance and analogy, and 

 there is a certain slight distinction. In like manner some 

 trees produce fruits while others do not, though they aid 

 fruit-bearing trees in the production of fruit, as happens in 

 the case of the fig-tree and the caprifig. 



In comparison with these views of Aristotle those of his 

 disciple Theophrastus * appear to some extent enlightened, 

 and to rest on a wider experience, but even his observation 

 supplies nothing of interest on the subject for he says that 

 some blossoms of the 'mali medicae' produce fruit, and 

 that some do not, and that it should be observed whether 

 the same thing occurs in other plants, which he might 

 easily have done for himself in his own garden. He is more 

 concerned with putting his knowledge into logical order, than 

 with answering the question whether there is any sexual 

 relation in plants. It is certain, he says, that among plants 

 of the same species some produce flowers and some do not ; 

 male palms, for instance, bear flowers, the female only fruit 2 ; 

 and he concludes the sentence by the remark, that in this 

 lies the difference between these plants, and those which 

 produce no fruit, and that it is obvious that there must be a 

 great difference in the flowers. In his third book ' De Causis J 



The edition here used is that of Gottlob Schneider, ' Theophrasti Eresii 

 quse supersunt opera,' Leipzig, 1818. See in addition to the passages 

 noticed in the text the ' De Causis,' 1. I. c. 13. 4, and 1. IV. c. 4, and the 

 ' Historia Plantarum/ 1. II. c. 8. 



' It should be understood that neither Theophrastus nor the botanists of 

 the 1 6th and I7th centuries considered the rudiments of the fruit to be part 

 of the flower ; this, which was pointed out in the history of systematic 

 botany, seems to have been overlooked by Meyer, ' Geschichte,' I. p. 164. 



