56 



HISTORY OP THE TEGETABLK KINGDOM. 



presence of one of the two sexual organs, or of 

 the two phaced together upon a common support, 

 with or without external envelopes intended for 

 their protection. In its greatest degree of sim- 

 plicity, the flower may, therefore, consist of 

 only a single sexual organ, male or female, that 

 is, of a stamen or a pistil. Thus, in the willows, 

 whose flowers are unisexual, the male flowers 

 merely consist of one. two, or three stamina, 

 attached to a small scale. The female flowers 

 are formed of a pistil, which is also accompanied 

 with a scale, hut without any other organs. In 

 this case, as in many otliers, the flower is as 

 simple as possible. It then takes the name of 

 male floxoer, or female flower, according to the 

 organs of which it is composed. The herma- 

 phrodite flower, on the other hand, is that in 

 which the two sexual organs, the male organ 

 and the female organ, exist together. 



But the diff^erent flowers which we have just 

 examined are not complete ; for although the es- 

 sence of the flower consists in the sexual organs, 

 yet, before it can be called perfect, it must pre- 

 sent other organs, not indeed essential to it, but 

 which, nevertheless, belong to it, and assist it in 

 performing its functions. These organs are the 

 calyx and corolla, which give support and pro- 

 tection to the parts of fructification. The fact 

 of the existence of two kinds of flowers in plants 

 was at an early period so far conjectured by 

 botanists ; but its complete elucidation has only 

 been made at a very modem date. As this is a 

 most curious and important discovery in the 

 history of the vegetable kingdom, we shall, before 

 going into a description of the sexual organs, 

 trace the progress of opinion on the subject fi'om 

 the earliest periods to the present time. 



It cannot, says Dr Keith, now be ascertained 

 with whom, or at what particular period, the 

 notice of vegetable sexuality originated ; but its 

 antiquity is unquestionably gi'eat, as it appears 

 to have been entertained even among the original 

 Greeks, from the antiquity of their mode of 

 cultivating figs, and to have been made the sub- 

 ject of the speculations of some of their earliest 

 philosophers. Empedocles taught that the 

 sexes were united in plants, a doctrine involved 

 indeed in that of Anaxagoras, by which the de- 

 sires and passions of animals ai-e attributed to 

 vegetables. It was evidently a prevalent notion 

 throughout Greece, and the nations to the east 

 of Greece, in the time of Herodotus, who recog- 

 nises it in his account of the cultivation of the 

 Babylonian palm, which he represents as being 

 cultivated in the country around Babylon in 

 the manner of figs; the cultivator taking the 

 flower of that palm which the Greeks call the 

 male palm, and binding it around the flowers of 

 the fruit-bearing palm, that the fruit may not 

 fall immature. Whether the beneficial effect 

 resulting from this practice, was produced by 



the agency of insects genei'ated in the male 

 plant, as Herodotus asserts, it is not our object 

 at present to inquire. It is enough to have as- 

 certained that the notion of a sexual distinction 

 in plants existed, or rather was a general and 

 prevalent idea, in the age of Herodotus, that is, 

 about 400 years before the Christian sera. The 

 next authority is that of Aristotle, who maintains 

 the doctrine of a distinction of sex in plants as 

 well as in animals, though he admits that some 

 plants are altogether without sex ; and represents 

 the beneficial effect of the practice adopted in 

 the cultivation of the palm, as resulting irom 

 the action of the dust of the male flower quick- 

 ening the maturity of the fruit, which it is said 

 to effect equally well, if it is wafted to the female 

 flower by means of the wind. Theophrastus, 

 the disciple and successor of Aristotle, who pur- 

 sued his botanical investigations to amuch greater 

 length than his master, maintains also the doc- 

 trine of the sexuality of vegetables, which he 

 illustrates with more of detail ; and exemplifies 

 not only in the case of the palm tree, but in that 

 also of the fig, and a variety of others. The 

 barren palm he calls the male, and the fruit- 

 bearing palm the female, pointing out at the 

 same time the ground of this distinction, as 

 consisting in the indispensable necessity of the 

 co-operation of the flower of the ban-en palm, 

 to the riponing of the fruit of the fertile palm, 

 the fruit of the fertile palm being otherwise ex- 

 tremely apt to fall off before it becomes ripe. 

 But if the spatlie of the male plant containing 

 the male flowers, is cut off and shaken over the 

 flowers of the female plant, the fruit does not 

 fall, but is preserved till it is matured ; in which 

 case, he adds, there is a sort of junction of 

 the male and female. But beyond the example 

 of the date-palm, and such other plants as pro- 

 duce barren or fertile flowers on distinct indi- 

 viduals, Theophrastus does not seem to have 

 entertained any correct notions of vegetable sex- 

 uality. For althougli he institutes the distinc- 

 tion of sex in other families also, yet it is by no 

 means on the same principle, but rather upon 

 that of the habit or aspect of the plant, or upon 

 the quality of the timber when felled ; the male 

 being represented as shorter and stouter, and the 

 female as taller and more slender, as erroneously 

 exemplified in the case of the larch, which is 

 well known to produce no individuals that are 

 exclusively male or female ; as well as in the 

 case of the lime tree, of which it is also added, 

 that the male plant is not only barren, but des- 

 titute even of flowers. And to complete the 

 mystery in which the doctrine was yet involved, 

 the male plant is in some cases said to have fruit 

 as well as the female. From all which it follows, 

 that the doctrine of vegetable sexuality was but 

 very imperfectly understood in the time of Theo- 

 phrastus. 



