i6 



PLANT HYBRIDIZATION BEFORE MENDEL 



view which he expresses regarding the work of Camerarius, as 

 well as for his own contribution to the subject. 



In 1759, the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg 

 published an offer of a prize for the determination of the problem 

 of sex in the plant kingdom, as follows: 



"Sexum plantarum argumentis et experimentis novis, praeter adhuc 



Dn. D. MiCHAELiS BERNHARDI 

 rALENTiNl 



RESPONSORIA 



Dn. D. RUDOLPH! JACOBI 



CAMERARIl 



.ANTARUM. 



Plate XIV. Title-page of the "Responsoria" of Valentin to the Camerarius Epistola. 

 Appendix to the "Ephemerides" of the "Academia Caesareo-Leopoldina," 1696. 



jam cognita, vel corroborare, vel impugnare, praemissa expositione his- 

 torica et physica omnium plantae partium, quae aliquid ad foecunda- 

 tionem et perfectionem seminis et fructus conferre creduntur." 



The essay of Linnaeus, entitled "Disquisitio de sexu plan- 

 tarum," was awarded the prize on September 6, 1760. 



Concerning this work, it is stated, in the Praefatio to the "Fun- 

 damenta Botanica" published under the editorship of J. E. Gilibert 

 in 1786 (p. viii) : 



"egregius autor Linnaeus vere novis, variisque experimentis potentiam 

 antherarum seu testiculorum plantae pro foecundatione germinum stabi- 

 lavit, addit quaedam de hybridis, plurima de motibus voluntariis partium 

 floris." 



"To say exactly," Linnaeus remarks, "who first came upon the 

 sex of plants, would be a thing of great difficulty, and of no use." 

 (8c, p. 102.) 



