THE DAWN OF BOTANICAL KNOWLEDGE 7 



He begins with an enumeration and definition of the 

 parts of a plant — root, stem, branch, twig, leaf, flower, and 

 fruit, and describes the first four as permanent organs, 

 while leaf, flower, and fruit are classed as temporary 

 or transient. The fruit, to Theophrastus, is comparable 

 with the foetus of the animal, something produced by it 

 but not a part of it ; the ovary was merely the first 

 beginnings of the fruit. That plants as a group had sex 

 like animals he did not realise, nor, for that matter, did 

 any other botanist for two thousand years after his day. 

 For although he talks of trees as " male " and " female," 

 " male " stands to him as a synonym for " barren." 

 Thus he writes : " Taking, as was said, all trees according 

 to their kinds, we find a number of differences. Common 

 to them all is that by which men distinguish the * male ' 

 and the ' female,' the latter bearing fruit, the former 

 barren in some kinds." Dates and figs, however, seem 

 to have puzzled him not a little, for in speaking of these 

 plants he distinctly suggests sexual fusion. He writes : 

 " With dates it is helpful to bring the male to the female ; 

 for it is the male which causes the fruit to persist and ripen, 

 and this process some call, by analogy, ' the use of the 

 wild fruit ' (referring to the practice of caprification where 

 the wild fig was employed). The process is thus per- 

 formed ; when the male palm is in flower, they at once cut 

 off the spathe on which the flower is, just as it is, and 

 shake the bloom with the flower and the dust over the 

 fruit of the female, and, if this be done to it, it retains 

 the fruit and does not shed it. In the case both of the 

 fig and of the date it appears that the male renders 

 aid to the female — for the fruit-bearing tree is called 

 ' female ' — but while in the latter case there is a union of 

 the two sexes, in the former the result is brought about 

 somewhat differently." 



Plants, according to Theophrastus, are woody or 

 herbaceous, and the herbaceous forms are classified as 

 annual, biennial, and perennial. His garden apparently 



