Aucuba 



much admired and its cultivation sought, but it was 

 almost killed by cruel kindness, for it was coddled up 

 in greenhouses. However, its hardy nature was soon 

 realised, and by 1813 it was described as one of the 

 hardy trees growing in Kew Gardens. Then a curious 

 fact became apparent. 



The Aucuba is one of those individuals of the 

 plant world in which the quality of sex is especially 

 brought to the fore, for any single Aucuba shrub is 

 either wholly male or wholly female ; the two sexes are 

 never combined on the same individual. In the same 

 way we have male willow and poplar trees, and female 

 willow and poplar trees. The flowers possess either 

 male organs stamens, or female organs the seeds in 

 their seed-case, but never both. And it so happened 

 that every Aucuba in England proved to be of the 

 female sex. The original importation was female, and 

 since the propagation from it had been by cuttings and 

 not by seed, every one of its offspring had been of the 

 same sex as the parent. Even a new importation of 

 Aucubas brought in by Dr. von Siebold from Japan 

 did not help matters, for the plants, though of many 

 varieties, turned out also to be all of the female sex. 

 Still it must be owned that this fact did not trouble 

 the early Victorian gardeners ; the handsome shrub 

 was grown for its leaves and its leaves alone, and that 

 its sex mattered did not occur to them. 



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