

FUNCTION.] FERTILISATION. 217 



CHAPTER IX. 



FERTILISATION. HYBRID PLANTS. 



THE office of the stamens is to produce the matter called 

 pollen, which has the power of fertilising the pistil through 

 its stigma. The stamens are, therefore, the representatives, 

 in plants, of the male sex, the pistil of the female sex. 



The old philosophers, in tracing analogies between plants 

 and animals, were led to attribute sexes to the former, chiefly 

 in consequence of the practice among their countrymen of 

 artificially fertilising the female flowers of the date with those 

 which they considered male, and also from the existence of a 

 similar custom with regard to figs. This opinion, however, 

 was not accompanied by any distinct idea of the respective 

 functions of particular organs, as is evident from their con- 

 founding causes so essentially different as fertilisation and 

 caprificatiou ; nor was it general, although Pliny, when he 

 said that " all trees and herbs are furnished with both sexes," 

 may seem to contradict this statement ; at least, he indicated 

 no particular organs in which the sexes resided. Nor does it 

 appear that more distinct evidence existed of the universal 

 sexuality of vegetables till about the year 1676, when it was 

 for the first time clearly pointed out by Sir Thomas Millington 

 and Grew. Claims are, indeed, laid to a priority of discovery 

 over the latter observer by Csesalpinus, Malpighi, and others ; 

 but I see nothing so precise in their works as we find in the 

 declaration of Grew, " that the attire (meaning stamens) do 

 serve as the male for the generation of the seed." It would 

 not be consistent with the plan of this work, to enter into 

 any detailed account of the gradual advances which such 

 opinions made in the world, nor to trace the progress of dis- 

 covery of the precise nature of the several parts of the stamens 

 and pistil. Suffice it to say, that, in the hands of Linnaeus, 



