vi PREFACE. 



doctrines. The method in which these have been 

 distributed in the following chapters, we propose to 

 explain ; but to render this more intelligible, it will 

 be expedient to lay before the reader a short account 

 of those discoveries that have given occasion to the 

 moulding of this science into a form so different from 

 that in which it appeared in the last century. 



The Sexual System of Botany ? as its title imports, 

 is founded on a discovery that there is in vegetables, 

 as well as in animals, a distinction of the sexes. 

 This was not wholly unknown to the ancients ; but 

 their knowledge of it was very imperfect. In order 

 to shew in what respect this discovery has been inves- 

 tigated further by the moderns, it will be necessary to 

 anticipate part of the subject-matter of the following 

 chapters. 



It will be seen in the course of this work, that the 

 flowers of the generality of vegetables are herma* 

 phrodite, containing within, them the characters of 

 both sexes ; but that in the classes Monoecia and 

 Dioecia, the sexes are parted, and allotted to differ- 

 ent flowers ; and that in the class Dioecia in parti- 

 cular, the sexes are even on different plants, the male 

 flowers growing all upon one plant, and the female 

 upon another. Now this last circumstance the an- 

 cients had observed : indeed it could hardly escape 

 their notice ; for the Palm tree, whose fruit was in 

 esteem, being o'f the class Dioecia, a very little obser- 

 vation was requisite to teach them, that in these trees 

 the flowers of the male were necessary to ripen the 

 fruit of the female: Accordingly we find, in the ac- 

 count given by Herodotus * of the country about Ba- 

 bylon, where these trees are in plenty, that it was a 

 custom with the natives in their culture of this plant 

 to assist the operations of nature, by gathering the 

 flowers cf the male trees, and carrying them to the 

 female. i>y this means they secured the ripening of 



Vhe 



Book the First. 



