12 



year with flowers containing Pistilla only, h but never- 

 produced any seed or fruit that came to perfection. 

 In a hot-house in Leipsic there was one of the same 

 species that produced blossoms only with Stamina. 

 In the year 174 9, a branch of this tree in flower was 

 sent from Leipsic to Berlin, and suspended over the 

 Palm-tree there, that produced only Pistilla, and that 

 year, for the first time, it bore perfect fruit and seed) 

 some of which were sent to Linnaeus in Sweden, who 

 raised other trees from them at Upsal. 



The importance of these two parts of a flower to 

 the maturing the fruit of the Palm was known among 

 the ancients, and the trees bearing flowers with Sta- 

 mina only, w r ere always 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 carefully attended to. 

 M. Michaux, in his Travels in Persia, has observed, 

 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 pro- 

 vinces, burned all the Palm-trees that produced Sta- 

 mina -, and famine would have been the consequence 

 had not the Persians previously taken the precaution 

 to preserve a great quantity of the Pollen for the pur- 



h This plant bears its Pistilla on one tree, and the Stamina 

 on another, and is of the Class Dioecia of this system. 



