FUNCTIOXS OF STAMENS A^'D PISTILS. 247 



trees near together, or to bring the barren blossoms to 

 those which were to bear fruit ; and in this chiefly con- 

 sisted the culture of that valuable plant. Tournefort 

 tells us that without such assistance dates have no ker- 

 nel, and are not good food. The same has long been 

 practised, and is continued to this very day in the Le- 

 vant, upon the Pistacia, and the Fig. 



At the revival of learning botanists were more occupied 

 in determining the species, and investigating the medi- 

 cal properties of plants, than in studying their physiolo- 

 gy ; and when after a while the subject in question was 

 started, some of them, as Morison, Tournefort and 

 Pontedera, uniformly treated with great contempt the 

 hypothesis which has since been established. We 

 shall, as we proceed, advert to some of their arguments. 



About the year 1676, Sir Thomas Millington, Savil.- 

 ian Professor at Oxford, is recorded to have hinted to 

 Dr. Grew that the use of the Stamens was probably to 

 perfect and fertilize the seed. Grew adopted the idea, 

 and ^ gFeat Ray approved it. Several other botanists 

 either followed them, or had previously conceived the 

 same opinion, among which R. J. Camerarius, Professor 

 at Tubingen towards the end of the sevenieenth centu- 

 ry, was one of the most able and original. Vaillant 

 wrote an excellent oration on the subject, which being 

 hostile to the opinions of Tournefort, lay in obscurity 

 till published by Boerhave. Blair and Bradley assented 

 in England, and several continental botanists imbibed 

 the same sentiments. Pontedera, however, at Padua, 

 an university long famous, but then on the decline, and 

 consequently adverse to all new inquiry and information, 



