IS PREFACE. 



ration are in the fame fldwer. The flowers of 

 the cucumber plant being not of the hermaphro- 

 dite 



gathering the flowers of the male trees, and carrying them to the 

 female. By this means they Iccured the ripening of the fruit, 

 which might elfe, on account of unfavourable feafons, or the 

 want of proper intermixture of the trees of each fex, have been 

 precarious, or, at leall, not to have been expeded in equal 

 quantities. 



The ancients hadalfo fimilar notions concerning the fig. Theo- 

 phraftus obferves, tliat the charaderiilic and univerfal difference 

 among trees is that of their gender, whether male or female. 

 Anftotle fays, that we ought not to fancy that the intermingling 

 of fexes in plants is the fame as among animals ; however, there 

 feems to have been a difference of opinion among the ancients as 

 to the manner in which plants fhould be allowed to have a differ- 

 ence of fcx. Some apprehended that the two fexes exifted fepa- 

 rately, and others, thought that they were united. Empedocles 

 fays that plants were androgynous or hermaphroditical, or that 

 they were a compofitlon of both fexes. Ariflotle expreffes his 

 doubt upon this head. Empedocles called plants oviparous ; foe 

 the feed, or egg, according to his account, is the fruit of the ge- 

 nerative faculty, one part of which ferves to form the plant, and 

 the other to nourifh the germ and root ; and in animals of differ- 

 ent fexes we fee that nature, when they would procreate, impels 

 them to unite, and, like plants, to become one, that, from this 

 combination of tv^ro, there may fpring up another animal. 



As to the manner in which fruits were impregnated, the an- 

 cients were not ignorant that it was by means of the prolific duft 

 contained in the flowers of the male ; and they remarked that the 

 fruits of trees never came to maturity till they had been cheriflied 

 with that duft. Upon this fiibjeft Anftotle fays, that if one ftiakesthe 

 duft of a branch of a male palm-tree over the female, the fruit willri- 

 pen quickly, and when the wind fhedsthis duft of the maleupon the fe- 

 male, it ripens apace, juftasifa branch of the male had been fufpend- 

 cd over the female. And Theophraftus obferves, that they bring the 



male 



