8 



mina only, were carefully planted among those that 

 bore the Pistilla, that the Dates might come to perfec- 

 tion ; and among the moderns, where this fruit is an 

 article of food, it is now not less scrupulously attended 

 to. M. Michaux, in his Travels in Persia, has ob- 

 served, that in the contentions and civil commotions 

 in that country for the dominion of the empire., the 

 different parties which were alternately victorious, in 

 order the more speedily to reduce the inhabitants of 

 the provinces, burned all the Palm-trees that produced 

 Stamina $ and famine would have been the conse- 

 quence had not the Persians previously taken the 

 precaution to preserve a great quantity of the Pollen 

 for the purpose of fructitying the fruit-bearing trees 

 which produce only Pistilla. It also appears from the 

 same author, that the Pollen, which had been pre- 

 served for this purpose, had been kept for eighteen 

 years without losing its fertilizing property. . 



To illustrate the importance of the Stamina and 

 Pistilla, Linnaeus made a decisive experiment on the 

 Horned-Poppy, for which reason I have introduced 

 that flower to face the title page. d From this plant 

 he stripped off the Stamina from two separate flowers, 

 and afterwards carried the Pollen of a third to one of 

 these which he had so deprived of its Stamina : the 



A The Red Horned-Poppy grows wild in sandy corn-fields; it 

 blossoms in June and July, the flowers are very short-lived, 

 often not exceeding half a day, yet produced in long suc- 

 session. The botanical name is Glauciwn phmiicium. 



