PLANT HYBRIDIZATION BEFORE MENDEL 19 



regarding sex in plants, although Ray recognized the different 

 sexes in such dioecious plants as Cannabis^ Urtica, Mercurialis, 

 Humulus, etc., while Tournefort, on the contrary, followed the 

 error of the ancients. Millington is referred to, in the words: 



"they report him to have been the first true discoverer of this doctrine, 

 if indeed it is permissible to call him the discoverer, who perceived some- 

 thing, but did not teach it in public writing." (8c, p. 103.) 



It is of especial interest to note Linnaeus' opinion of Camera- 

 rius' work, briefly expressed as follows : 



"Rud. Jac. Camerarius and others explained very many things, but no 

 one better than Vaillant, that great botanist of the French, who, in an 

 academic address, edited by Boerhaave, showed himself to have accurately 

 known the matter, although he did not demonstrate it with arguments." 

 (lb., p. 103.) 



It is of interest to note parenthetically, in the "Sponsalia Plan- 

 tarum" of Wahlbom (8a), one of the pupils of Linnaeus, the 

 following statement, also made with regard to Camerarius: 



"1695, Rudolphus Jacobus Camerarius, in the 'Epistola de sexu plan- 

 tarum,' Tubingen, first clearly demonstrated sex and generation, although 

 he was himself not devoid of doubt concerning this truth, which moved 

 him to the experiments which he made with Cannabis." (p. 219.) 



Of Vaillant, Wahlbom also states, in the same connection, as 

 follows : 



"1718. Sebastianus Vaillantius ; discourse concerning the structure of 

 flowers (Lugdun. Batav.). He first truly discerned the sexes of plants, and 

 by many observations placed beyond doubt this mystery of nature, which 

 seemed to all before paradoxical and absurd." 



It is, indeed, surprising to find the preference accorded, by a 

 mind like that of Linnaeus, or rather, speaking literally, by Lin- 

 naeus and one of his pupils, to the rhetorical discussion of Vail- 

 lant over the scientific experimentation of Camerarius. Wahlbom, 

 as a pupil of Linnaeus, probably reflects the latter's view in the 

 matter. 



Returning to Linnaeus' "De sexu plantarum": 



"There is," he says, "in certain plants a true difference of sex; these 

 proceed from the seeds of one mother; but certain ones in their flowers 

 show stamens without pistils, and so are rightly called males; others, 

 pistils without stamens, and by right are called females ; and this by 

 so constant a law, that never any plant is seen to have borne female 

 flowers, unless other staminiferous flowers were found, either in the 

 same plant, or in different plants of the same species, and versa vice." 

 (ib., p. 112.) 



