CHAP, i.] Adherents and Opponents of Sexuality. 399 



dissertation, ' Sponsalia Plantarum,' in the first volume of 

 the * Amoenitates Academicae ' (1749). He first gives the 

 views of Millington, Grew, Camerarius and others ; then on 

 p. 63 he accepts the statement of Gustav Wahlboom, that 

 he, Linnaeus, had devoted infinite labour to this question 

 in 1735 in the 'Fundamenta Botanica,' and had there ( 132- 

 150) proved the sexes of plants with so great certainty that no 

 one would hesitate to found on it a detailed classification 

 of plants. Here then we have once more the construction of 

 Linnaeus' so-called sexual system introduced into the ques- 

 tion of sexuality, as if it had anything whatever to do with the 

 establishing the existence of sexes in plants, and as to the 

 infinite labour (infinite labore) which Linnaeus is supposed 

 to have given to the question, the paragraphs cited from the 

 ' Fundamenta ' contain the scholastic subtleties quoted in 

 Book I. chap. 2, but not one single really new proof. The 

 arguments in the dissertation we are considering are of exactly 

 the same kind, and it is itself only a lengthy paraphrase 

 of Linnaeus' propositions in the ' Fundamenta Botanica,' illus- 

 trated by experiments made by others, and with the addition 

 of a few unimportant observations, some of which are mis- 

 interpreted. We read, for instance, p. 101, ' Nectar is found 

 in almost all flowers, and Pontedera thinks that it is absorbed 

 by the seeds that they may be the longer preserved ; it might 

 seem that bees must be hurtful to flowers, since they carry away 

 the nectar and the pollen ; ' but Linnaeus, differing from Ponte- 

 dera, remarks that 'bees do more good than harm, because they 

 scatter the pollen on the pistil, though it is not yet ascertained 

 what is the importance of the nectar in the physiology of the 

 flower.' This fact of the assistance rendered by insects, 

 which was soon afterwards better described by Miller, is 

 not further examined in this place, for Linnaeus goes on to 

 speak of gourds, that they do not perfect their fruit under 

 glass, because the wind is prevented from effecting the pollina- 

 tion. 



