PREFACE. 13 



dite kind, it is neceffary, for the rendering it 

 prolific, that the male flowers, or fome quality 



belong- 



male to the female palm, in order to make her produce fruit. The 

 ■ manner in which they proceed, fays he, is this: When the male 

 is in flower, they fele£l a branch abounding with that downy dull 

 which refides in the flower, and fhake this over the fruit of the 

 female; this operation prevents the fruit from becoming abortive, 

 and brings it foon to perfect maturity. Pliny aifo informs us that 

 naturalifts admit the diftinftion of iex not only in trees, but ia 

 herbs and in all plants, yet this is no-where more obfervable, he 

 adds, than in palms, the females of which never propagate but 

 when they are fecundated by the dull of the male. He calls the 

 female palms, deprived of male affifiance, barren widows ; he 

 compares tlie conjunction of thefc plants to that of animals, and 

 fays, that to generate fruit the female needs only the afperfion of 

 the duft or down of the flower of the male. 



Zaluzianfcki feems to have been the firfl: among the moderns 

 who clearly diftinguirned from one another the male, the female, 

 and the hermaphrodite, plants. About one hundred 3'ears after 

 him Sir Thomas Millington and Dr. Grew communicated to the 

 Royal Society their obfervations on the impregnating dull of the 

 fiamina. 



Camerarius, towards the end of the laft century, obferved, upoa 

 plucking off the ftamina of fome male plants, the buds that ought 

 to have produced came not to maturity. Malpeghi, Gccffry, and 

 Vaillant, have all carefully confidered the fecundating duft, the 

 latter of whom feems to have been the firll eyewitnefs of this 

 fecret of nature, the admirable operation that palfes in the flowers 

 ©f plants between the organs of different fexes. Many authors 

 afterward applied themfclves to improve this fyftem, the principal 

 of whom were Morland, Logan, Van Royen, Bradley, Gotliel, 

 Ludwigius, Blair, Wolfms, Verdrees, and Monro ; but Linneus 

 had the honour of completing this fyflem by reducing all trees and 

 plants to particular claffes, . dillinguifhed by the number of their 

 {lamina or male oro-ans. 



I The 



