302 SEXUALITY OF VEGETABLES. CHAT. VI. 



SECTION II. 



Discoveries of the Moderns. 



Caesalpi- Caesalpinus, who follows next in order, though 

 not till after an interval of many centuries, enters 

 more into the detail of the doctrine, and speaks 

 with more confidence on the subject than any pre- 

 ceding phytologist. Trees which produce fruit only 

 he denominates females ; and trees of the same 

 kind which are barren, he denominates males ; 

 adding that the fruit is found to be more abundant 

 and of a better quality where the males grow in 

 the neighbourhood of the females, which is, as he 

 says, occasioned by certain exhalations from the 

 males dispersing themselves all over the females, 

 and by an operation not to be explained, disposing 

 them to produce more perfect seed. Still it seems 

 doubtful whether any conjecture had been yet 

 formed with regard to the peculiar and appropriate 

 organs by which the sexual intercourse is con- 



Zeluzi- ducted. Zeluzianski, a native of Poland, who lived 

 about the end of the sixteenth century, is said to 

 have made some considerable discoveries with regard 

 to the sexuality of vegetables. But as his book, 

 if he ever published one, is not now to be met 

 with, no one seems able to say what his discoveries 

 were, if rather they are not a transcript of the dis- 

 coveries of Caesalpinus.* 



* Pultene/s Sketches, p. 335. 



